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Affliction 2 card in real need of drawing power
By Zach Arnold | November 24, 2008
If this is the card so far, it needs a lot of help to draw more than 20,000 PPV buys:
Top two fights: Fedor vs. Arlovski and Lindland vs. Babalu
Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Kiril Sidelnikov vs. Paul Buentello
Chris Horodecki vs. Dan Lauzon
Jay Hieron vs. Jason High
Mark Hominick vs. LC Davis
Antonio Duarte vs. Albert Rios
First thought: Arlovski and Babalu are the two strongest drawing cards on this line-up and they’ve been out of UFC for too long to make any impact for an organization with no television deal.
There is no need for UFC President Dana White to lose any sleep over the competition with cards like these.
Update: Brent Brookhouse thinks this show will do more than 100,000 buys. I stand by my estimate of 20,000 buys.
Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 55 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“1. Compare the hype for this upcoming show to the first event, which had an inordinate amount of hype amongst press types (huge amounts of e-mail ads, PR sessions, etc.) Almost dead silent on this front.”
Well, they changed PR firms. Affliction’s PR people are handling it now, not an outside firm like last time. Plus this show really hasn’t even gotten underway yet. I think in December they’ll start promoting it a bit more heavily.
Any MMA hype through the end of the year will be on The Ultimate 2008. Then Affliction has to compete with the hype for two UFC events.
[…] right now seem to revolve around Affliction; will this second show finally happen? Will it draw? Can Fedor vs. Arlovski break 20,000 buys? The first time they attempted to run this show it was with Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovski […]
Aside from the fact that I actually do believe Pac can beat De La Hoya because Golden Boy is mentally weak plus soft to the body and Pacman is training like a madman and has already been at 150 lbs at 6% body fat for 2-3 weeks now… DLH’s fight against Mayweather saw him get beaten by a man naturally 7-8 lbs heavier than Pac with half the power, better defense and little more speed but none of the heart. Since then he’s almost 2 years older and normally I wouldn’t talk age since Oscar is still young by alot of standards. But he doesn’t have the fire anymore and when that happens age is a much bigger factor. BHop still has it and thats why he kicked Kelly P’s ass around the ring at 43, Oscar doesn’t and thats why if he gets demoralized he’ll quit on himself. Depending on the odds given to Pacman i’ll get a little play on that fight. At first I doubted it myself but Pac wants it and DLH just doesn’t seem like he’s as focused as he should be.
Now as I started… ASIDE from that… Arlovski’s hands are not good enough to be a heavyweight champ. I never have seen anything where Roach said that anyways. I’ve seen him say he’s talented but not say he could be a champ.
Also – If FEG wants DREAM to continue it will continue. FEG is still as rich if not richer than ZUFFA. They can afford to lose some short-term money on DREAM till they hit the jackpot with somebody, (Iishi), and put him up against Kimbo or Bob Sapp and get some freakshow dollars, which is where Japanese fight promotions are made or broke. (Akebono vs Bob Sapp did a 50 + Share.)
And yes Affliction will last till a 3rd show. The only question is when.
It doesn’t look good for Affliction. There’s a very slim window of opportunity for Affliction to market this show. The Ultimate 2008 will dominate during December, so any media push made before December 27th is going to have reduced effectiveness. They basically have 3 weeks at the start of January, and they’ll be taking on the media push of Hendo/Franklin, Penn/GSP, and the UFC brand. AA vs Fedor is a good fight, but that’s asking too much of it.
Another question to ask is what effect the economy will have on the show. Whatever effect it has on the UFC will be magnified for Affliction.