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Affliction: Banned 7/19 Honda Center
By Zach Arnold | July 19, 2008
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Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Lindland looked a little sloppy in his return match since his loss to Fedor. Not really impressed but a win is a win.
Now they bring out Megadeth. Neato.
Barnett knocks out Rizzo! Astounding. His striking looked awesome tonight.
That was brutal. Wow.
Arlovski looked great, Rothwell took a ton of punishment before he went down. Great fight.
The old Arlovski is back. He decimated Ben Rothwell.
Fear the beard.
I heard so much about Rothwell…what a stiff.
AA looked very good, but Rothwell looked like a big, slow oaf. Very plodding.
Some fun action, but Hominick/Young has been the only GOOD fight of the night.
Every other fight has seen the obvious favorite dominate.
I thought Rothwell looked ok. Everyone is going to look slow compared to AA at heavyweight. Barnett, Rizzo, or Sylvia would have been a better matchup for Rothwell.
So, Tito Ortiz possibly in Affliction at some point?
I really hate that Megadeth is here.
And then, more Megadeth.
Rothwell may end up being a top notch fighter, but not yet.
Many have been suggesting he is a bordlerline top ten fighter, but I think he has some work to do before he is even close to the top ten.
Yes, AA is fast, but Ben has size and not too much else.
Has anyone else been having repeated audio drop-outs and pixelation of the image?
I am not sure if it is the signal or my cable company.
Must be the cable company, mine has been fine. Sloppy, but fine.
Yes, the production has been sloppy, but that has to be expected in the fight card of a company.
I am sure it will improve if they run a second show.
Fedor!
Decimation.
45 huddle can you please minimize fedor’s achievement please?
Why is Don Johnson in the ring?
Great showing by Fedor. I really thought Tim was going to give him trouble. How wrong I was.
Jesus, wouldn’t be surprized if Jay Glazer and Frank Trigg start sucking off Fedor right in the middle of the ring.
God it’s almost embarassing to witness this.
charib:
DUDE! He just solidified his position as the absolute best HW of all time if not any MMA fighter of all time.
All that’s left is randy and josh.
Randy and Fedor in the same ring… I have goosebumps.
Yeah, I was startled to see Don Johnson in the ring even before the winner was announced.
I was thinking about this, and Tim is 1-3 in his last four fights. Admitedly, it was against top talent.
I also agree with Charib that Glazer and Trigg’s praise of Fedor was way over the top.
If Trigg had indeed sucked off Fedor, I would not have been surprised.
The announcing was, at times, pretty biased.
Did anyone catch Glazer saying that Whitehead was 240 at fighttime?
Someone’s drinking the WAMMA kool aid.
Hype is a fun thing but try maintain a little perspective. Unlike the two talking testicles Jay Glazer and Frank Trigg.
Their job is to sell this promotion, nothing more nothing less.
LMAO at every wad on here that was doubting Fedor and calling Sylvia to win like Fedor was some overhyped jobber.
You all know who you are and I hope you go into hiding for a while, because that was just EMBARRASSING for you.
Guys, you know we can’t give Fedor any credit until he beats some schlub that Joe Rogan calls “dangerous” (definition: having two hands, two feet, and being conscious).
Outstanding stuff from the Russians.
Quite frankly I think Fedor can reclaim the mantle as best p4p fighter in the world.
As great as Anderson Silva is, to me the competition he’s destroyed (impressively mind you), isn’t that great compared to who Fedor’s beaten. I guess it’s a bit tough to name a HW p4p best and take nothing away from how great Anderson is, but I really think Fedor is the best of the best and it was solidified tonight.
This show was sooooo awesome. Also, when I heard Megadeth was performing, all I could think of was using “Holy Wars” for the main event… Which was exactly what they did.
Production and presentation were good, fights were great, announcing was, well, you know.. But AA and Fedor prove how great they are, I can’t wait for the possible showdown between them.
A hell of a good show, but the announcing was crap for the most part. Msotly because of the teet-sucking Glazer and Trigg were doing. But Affliction did an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING job of treating Fedor’s presence as the second coming of Jesus Christ, Moses, Muhammed, Abraham, Elvis Presley, and Rikidozan all coming at the same time.
No fight of the year sort of fights, but mostly everything was solid at the very least. Sure the Goodsridge/Buentello and Negao/Lindland fights were a little sloppy, but nothing terrible. I would reccomend vieweing this show. Especially the site of Fedor beating a helpless stork into submission.
How fast did Fedor look tonight? WOW.
And for those “experts” saying Fedor’s striking isn’t that great – care to re-assess? He had a lot of trouble getting inside that reach of Sylvia’s eh? So glad he was miraculously able to overcome that humungous advantage…his wild looping punches and lack of head movement didn’t seem to hurt him too badly against a striker of “Sylvia’s skills”. I think he landed 90% of his punches and then snapped on the RNC like Tim was a grappling dummy. Wow, that was just beautiful.
I don’t know whether Affliction’s business model will last, but I really don’t care. That was an amazing show. For a first-time production, I thought the announcers and crew did a great job of making the viewer feel like this was a huge sporting event.
I thought Sylvia would pull the upset, but Fedor is a beast. Arlovski looked great too.
I only wonder how the Fedor-Couture hype in the ring afterwards will affect Randy’s legal dispute with the UFC. Things could get even messier and drag out even longer. Unfortunately, Randy isn’t getting any younger.
When you combine this show with an entertaining UFC Fight Night, this had to be a groundbreaking night for MMA in the US.
Where is 45 huddle? I want to know how superior the UFN event was.
Affliction delivered and then some. Watching Fedor in action was great and his speed, punches and technique were all up to par.
Anderson Silva also was brilliant on the UFC card, but if Affliction can keep it up, I’ll watch their events every time. The Affliction announcement team did a great job too. Huge night/weekend for MMA.
Fedor is a machine. He should never be doubted!!!
I thought Sylvia would be competitve, obviously. So much for that. Can anyone doubt now that Fedor is the best on the planet? Do we need to even bother comparing him to Noguiera? Seriously, All we need is Cro Cop to come back to the UFC and KO Heath Herring and Brock Lesnar (the prerequisite pro wrestler) and you’d probably have more than a couple people choosing him to be up there in the upper echelon of the division just behind Noguiera, and it’ll be 2005 all over again.
Honestly, if Fedor fights in October against either Barnett or Arlovski and then again on 12/31 against Cro Cop in a rematch, that’s a pretty solid year for the guy. A lot better, IMO, than struggling with Sylvia and then fighting a washed up (and that says something, considering he struggled with SIMS) Mir. Props to ESPN for using the Sherdog rankings.
Wow, people are calling for my head here.
1. I predicted Sylvia to win. I also said if Fedor wins, it will be within the first 3 minutes. I have been negative on Fedor because he hasn’t fought a top guy since August 2005. I thought he should have been abscent from all rankings for a while. Now that he beat Sylvia, he should be ranked the #1 Heavyweight again.
2. Sherdog.com is garbage, but their rankings are at least half respectible.
3. The production was horrible for the show. For us hardcore fans, we got treated to a lot of great fights. Yet for any casual fans tuning in, that felt like the minor leagues compared to the UFC. The sound was horrible and the announcers were fanboys. They made Joe Rogan look neutral.
Overall, a fun night of action.
“I thought he should have been abscent from all rankings for a while. Now that he beat Sylvia, he should be ranked the #1 Heavyweight again.”
Tip of the cap to 45 for being a man of his word.
The way the night played out last night, I was able to switch immediately to the end of the Arlovski/Ben Rothwell fight after UFC and then had to wait 20 minutes just for the Fedor fight to start.
Fedor was able to reuse the same game plan that Couture pulled on Sylvia in their last fight and did even better. Sylvia hasn’t improved one bit on the ground and he doesn’t learn. He’s still a fish out of water on the ground. I hope to never see him fight again.
Barnett looked fat as hell.
The light was dark last night at Affliction. That spells bad news. I don’t think they sold the tickets they claimed they had.
^ Indeed. Though it would take a very ignorant person to say anything other than that after a 36 second decimation of a top 3-5 ranked fighter that you picked to win the fight.
When does Barnett ever NOT look fat. I have a feeling the guy could train only cardio for 6 months and still have that spare tire…just poor genetics.
Even when he was on the crank he had the love handle look going, but it never seems to affect his cardio or performance. It just looks unaesthetically pleasing when he’s bobbing and weaving around and that flubber is just flying!
I never picked Sylvia to win. Check your facts.
He was cut when first came aboard to the UFC. He was lean as hell in Japan. He’s fat now. That may be because of his inactivity… but he does look fat.
I meant he was fat when he first came to the UFC.
The light was dark last night at Affliction. That spells bad news. I don’t think they sold the tickets they claimed they had.
It was lit like a major boxing (you know, a real sport) event: in other words, they don’t give a shit about showing fans with signs. The pictures taken of the crowd from inside the arena I’ve seen show it pretty darn full.
Cyph – My “indeed” comment was directed to the comment above yours…you just happened to beat me to posting and posted in between us mate.
Meh, I didn’t really think he ever looked that overly ripped in Japan. I think it probably has a lot to do with the layoff, because in his second fight against Mirko coming off the injury he looked just as sloppy if not worse.
He looked his most ripped when he fought Semmy on the Boom-Ba-Ye NYE show in 2003(?)…but other than that he’s always had that love-handles/spare tire look in my opinion.
Boxing fights are dimly lit because they’re not sold out. I remember distinctly that Mayweather/De La Hoya the crowd was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Dimly lit + 8 $50 tickets available on the day of the fight = low tickets sold.
It might have been for the undercard. HBO rarely lights anything beyond the floor for any event, even sellouts. That’s generally because HBO spends more on lighting than probably everyone on MMA combined. For a better look at Affliction.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2008/7/20/575117/ufc-affliction-post-fight#comments
That’s a dead crowd?
Funny I was about to post that same photo! Looks pretty “dead” and “empty” to me.
I was at Affliction and at Chuck/Jardine (both events at the Honda Center). There were at least as many people there for Affliction. I haven’t seen the numbers posted yet, but to me it appeared there were more people at Affliction than UFC 76. The upper deck was pretty sparse for UFC 76, while it looked packed for Affliction.
I haven’t seen the event on TV yet, but they didn’t have lights on the crowd the way UFC does. UFC also puts a mic on the Octagon so you hear the thuds of takedowns and blows. Affliction didn’t do that. Not sure if the crowd was mic’d but they were chanting loudly for Vitor, Barnett, Arlovski and Fedor. The crowd went absolutely bananas for Arlovski and Fedor.
It looked like Affliction was inspired by the PRIDE production. Big stage with a light wall and a white canvas lit from above without lights on the crowd which makes the canvas look even brighter.
Awesome show. I could have done without Megadeath. I’m sure everyone there will go back for the next Affliction event.
They could do big business with Barnett vs Arlovski in that building.