Will Affliction give UFC trouble?

Question

I think that Affliction is going to really push UFC. I think now we will see how good Dana White really is. I know there are a lot of Dana White fans out there and people even think the UFC is where it is because of him. I disagree and think a monkey could have sold the UFC on Spike. For crying out loud, is anyone surprised in MMA popularity with the state of boxing the way it is? He had a great product to sell and it made him look like a genius but I think he is going to be uncovered as a knucklehead that he is. It is harder to stay on top then get there and I think he will fail miserably. The fighters make MMA not Dana White. I asked the question a while back if anyone thought that the UFC could be in trouble if another motivated affiliation challenged the them and it was resounding that nobody agreed with me. Now what do people think? Is Affliction for real? Does the UFC need someone besides Dana White at the helm? I think they are in trouble.....give me your thoughts.

Answer 1

not at first no. But if Affliction and WAMMA can pull in other orgs. such as Cage Rage, Dream, Elite EX. They will in deed. Affliction has retained the top heavyweights in the world. They need to fill the lesser weight classes. how do you do that, well pull in other organizations not just the fighters. If wamma can do this and create a true World Alliance of MMA then money will pour in and fighters from UFC and WEC will start to trickle away. Do I think this will happen I give it about a 30%-45%.

Answer 2

Well first off, the PPV buys aren't even all in on the Affliction show, for all we know it could have been a PPV failure.

Second, they put down a hefty sum of money to put on the show they did, while that is awesome to enter into the game, it is hard to keep that sort of thing up, I promise you that they lost money or barely broke even on that show. It will be hard for them to continue putting on expensive shows like that, even with some strong backing, until they really build up a solid fan base, which means they will have to put on several more expensive shows before they start really turning a good profit. Even selling those d**n T Shirts at 60 bucks a pop won't necessarily recoup the losses.

(Btw, by banning affliction T shirts from UFC events, expect T shirt sales to go down as well).

I don't think Affliction will give the UFC too much trouble, but I foresee some great fights coming from them before they drop off into obscurity or bankruptcy.

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Answer 3

affliction's long term viability depends on a couple of things:

1. can they sign fighters in other weight classes? - although its great that they signed all of these top HWs, i know a lot of mma fans like to see quality bouts at all weight classes.  plus, because they have such a thin roster right now, and they used all their top talent at the first show, apparently they are waiting until november for the next show.  ufc will hold 5 events by that time!

2. will they be willing to accept financial losses in order to grow the company and for how long? - ufc was willing to accept losses for a few years before the business became profitable.  now affliction may not even have to go through that, because ufc did the hard work by creating a market for mma.  for all we know the PPV numbers could be huge, and that would make affliction instant competition.

as for dana white, i don't think selling mma was as easy as you seem to think, becuase if it was, the previous owners probably wouldn't have sold it.  but they did announce recently that one of the fertetta brothers is moving out f the casino business to focus on the ufc, and growing the brand internationally, which i think will prove to be a very good move for them.

Answer 4

I'm sick of Dana White

I liked the UFC from way back much better

he is too focused on the product in my opinion and not the fighters

the fighters suffer and so do the fans

I think another MMA league or whatever you want to call it could challenge the UFC especially one that doesn't take 3 hours of running time to show 1 hour worth of fights and instead of giving so much time to the show the fighters trash talking each other why not give us a little more info on their martial arts background

Wrestler/Boxer is not MMA but Dana White's UFC seems to think so

Answer 5

The only problem is compitition to sign fighters. The UFC pay its top fighters pretty well but the guys lower on the cards are fighting for scraps. If  Affliction is willing to pay those guys, more they will jump ship. It seems like White lets his ego get in the way with bussiness to. (Ortiz & Couture)

If Affliction gives to much to the fighters they will go the way of IFL. I think it was a mistake to use a ring over a cage to.

Answer 6

i think it has alot of potential to at least compete with the ufc, i understand what you mean about dana white and how you either really hate him or really love him{like the dallas cowboys} but to be honest i think it will put on a few more shows and then fade out if the ufc had fedor i dont think we'd be talking about this now

i always doubted the guy and thought he was over rated but he proved me wrong on saturday i think the only chance it has to compete is to have more talented fighters in other divisions and to fight in the cage {did you see everyone falling through the ropes} i think thats what makes mma different and better than boxing maybe if they got a tv deal too that wouldnt hurt the affliction brand either and with donal trump backing them up thats not out of the question well this is a good question and im just giving you my honest opinion