Another One Bites The Dust

Dana White and the UFC demonstrate once again that they have the mixed martial arts world by the balls. Affliction, which was the UFC's main rival, if you can call it that, had to cancel their latest promotion due to the positive steroid test of Josh Barnett.

Barnett was slated to fight Fedor Emelianenko, whom many believe to be the best mixed martial artist on the planet. Not only did Affliction cancel the whole card, but they also announced that they would no longer be in the business of promoting fights. Affliction will instead work with the UFC. No one is quite sure what this means, but you can bet the terms of the deal will be controlled by Dana White.

White always said that "Affliction made great T-shirts but they're not in the fight business, we are". The collaboration between the companies probably means that UFC fighters can now expect sponsorship deals from Affliction and who knows, maybe it means that Fedor will one day fight for the UFC.

This a great example of 'if you can't beat them join them'. Affliction definitely had the money to compete with UFC but their fight promotion IQ was too low. The only other orginization in North America that has been able to survive outside of the UFC has been Strikeforce, based in San Jose California.

Strikeforce never set out to compete with the UFC. Instead, they went after smaller, local markets and created a niche and are thriving in their own way.

So after being at odds for a little over a year I think this re-kindled partnership between the UFC and Affliction will good for both the fans and the fighters.