Category — Affliction

What do you do when you fail a drug test that results not only in your being pulled from the biggest fight of your career but also leads to the downfall of the organization that you were supposed to fight for? You turn to wrestling, that’s what.

Josh Barnett, whose positive test for steroids was the last nail in Affliction’s coffin, has agreed to wrestle in Japan’s Inoki Genome Federation, according to MMA Fanhouse. The 31-year-old heavyweight contender is no stranger to the IGF, as you can see in the clip below. MMA gets Brock Lesnar, I guess it’s only fair pro wrestling gets Barnett.

Okay, if my math is correct and Rich Franklin fights the returning Tito Ortiz at UFC 103, then the vacancy opposite Franklin’s original opponent, Dan Henderson, could be filled by Vitor Belfort, who was fighting for Affliction until the company decided it only needed T-shirts, not fighters. Just speculating but, as Spock would say, my logic is sound.

The Josh Barnett pile-on begins. A day after Affliction announced it was getting out of the fight promotion game – the end result of bad decision-making and a brutally tough competitive market dominated by an 800-pound gorilla – the fighters from the just-cancelled Affliction: Trilogy event are lashing out. And unfortunately, Barnett, whose positive drug test was the straw that broke the camel’s back, is being blamed.

“Bottom line is, Josh Barnett should pay everybody,” Ben Rothwell told MMA Weekly. The heavyweight was scheduled to fight Chase Gormley and is now out of a job. “He (expletive) up, bad.”

Yeah, he fucked up bad. He juiced, got caught, got banned from fighting in the main event against Fedor Emelianenko, leaving the promoter without their only real draw on the card. But come on, it’s not his fault Affliction put all their eggs in one Russian basket. Fedor was the only real reason to watch the fights and the promoter, for whatever reason, couldn’t come up with a suitable replacement on short notice. Is that reason enough to cut their not insignificant losses and run? I guess so. Doesn’t make it Barnett’s fault. If it had been an injury instead of steroids that had forced him out of the fight I’m sure Rothwell and Paul Buentello and other Barnett blamers would keep their yaps shut. Just because Barnett did it to himself doesn’t mean he’s responsible for Affliction folding. Yet Barnett has become not just a scapegoat for a failed fight promoter, he’s the most-hated man in MMA, which must make Brock Lesnar deliriously happy.

Besides, if you’re a good fighter you’ll find a new home. The UFC may pick up some of the fighters’ contracts, or none of them, nobody knows for sure. UFC president Dana White wants to bring in Fedor but he’s under contract with M-1 Global, not Affliction, which could make it a bit hairy. White has also expressed strong interest in middleweight Vitor Belfort, who was slated to fight Jorge Santiago and who had volunteered to replace Barnett against Fedor. Both Belfort and Santiago are considered top-10 middleweight fighters, which the UFC could certainly use to throw at champ Anderson Silva.

Belfort and Santiago could also do a lot to strengthen a deep Strikeforce middleweight division that already includes a quasi-retired Cung Le, Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith along with Jake Shields and Nick Diaz (when they fight at a catch-weight).

As for the others, Strikeforce could certainly stand to bolster its roster if it wants to improve its position in the marketplace. Affliction was actually negotiating a partnership deal with Strikeforce this week that fell through resulting in Affliction shuttering its doors. But it would be easy to see who else from the card Strikeforce would be interested in.

In fact, Strikeforce had a serious shake-up this week with its Carano vs. Cyborg card. Strikeforce is already in need of a replacement for Joe Riggs, who pulled out of his August 15 match-up with Nick Diaz due to medical problems. Affliction opponents Jay Hieron or Paul Daley (preferably Hieron) could easily fill that vacancy.

Likewise, Rothwell or Gilbert Yvel could step in for the injured Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem, who had to withdraw from his title defense against Fabricio Werdum.

And the second-most-exciting fight on the Affliction: Trilogy card is till one I’d like to see: Gegard Mousasi vs. Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Mousasi had effectively cleaned out the middleweight division (outside of the UFC) and was moving up to 205 pounds while Sobral is a top-10 light heavyweight.

And who doesn’t want to see lightweight Japanese supestar Takanori Gomi? Somebody please adopt him.

Affliction is done. At least, as a mixed martial arts promotion. The details are still sketchy – and in some cases, downright conflicting – but the nut of it is that the failure of the Affliction: Trilogy event announced earlier today is the last straw. Now the company is going back to focusing on what it does best, selling obnoxious tattoo-emblazoned T-shirts to UFC wannabes.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Affliction and the Ultimate Fighting Championship are expected to release a joint statement on Friday afternoon announcing that Affliction would no longer promote MMA events and instead its clothing division would become a sponsor of the UFC once again.

Affliction used to be one of the UFC’s biggest sponsors until it launched its own fight series in July 2008. Former PRIDE champion Fedor Emelianenko headlined its only two cards, defeating Tim Sylvia and then Andrei Arlovski. The events drew 14,832 attendees ($2.1 million gate) and 13,318 ($1.4 million gate), respectively. However, the organization reportedly paid out nearly $7 million in fighter salaries. That’s a lot of moola for fights only hardcore MMA fans were watching and I guess Affliction’s pockets (Donald Trump, M-1 Global and Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Productions) didn’t go any deeper.

Losing their main event at Affliction: Trilogy between Fedor and Josh Barnett due to a drug scandal earlier this week killed their pay-per-view revenue, meaning they’d have to sell a few more T-shirts at the gate in order to cut their fighters a paycheque.

A possible co-promotional deal with Strikeforce was rumoured to be in the works but with this latest news, it was either only a rumour or it just plain fell through. UFC president Dana White told Yahoo! Sports that an Affliction attorney “flew to Las Vegas only days after UFC 100 and offered to fold and turn its contracts over to the UFC if the UFC would remove its ban on its fighters wearing Affliction T-shirts.” While White reportedly told the attorney where to stick the offer, it now seems likely a deal was in place whether Affliction: Trilogy fell apart or not. And that line in Affliction VP Tom Atencio’s statement about canceling the event because his “first priority is to ensure that all future events live up to the company’s high standards” was just normal PR smokescreen bullshit.

As for the fighters under contract with Affliction, who knows what will happen to them. Will the UFC take over their contracts? Hard to say. The only certainty is that Dana White wants to bring Fedor Emelianenko into the fold and this brings him one step closer. He might even want to toss Josh Barnett a bone for making this all possible. And speaking of Barnett, this really shouldn’t be put on his shoulders as I’ve read on some fan forums, just as Affliction never should have been built on the drawing power of one fighter, Fedor Emelianenko. Affliction’s collapse goes much deeper than just one fight.

And consider this: what if Barnett’s B sample comes back negative for steroids when they test it?

Stay tuned, folks. This one’s far from over.

Time to make new plans for next Saturday night. The Affliction: Trilogy fight card scheduled for August 1 has been scrapped.

Josh Gross over at SI.com first reported the news this morning and Affliction VP Tom Atencio made a brief statement in a press release: “Finding an opponent for the number one ranked MMA heavyweight champion in such a short period of time was a huge endeavor and I’m thrilled at the amount of fighters willing to take on this challenge. But in the end, we just didn’t have enough time to promote a new fight to our standards.”

The first nail in Affliction: Trilogy’s coffin was hammered in earlier this weak when Josh Barnett tested positive for anabolic steroids and was denied licensure by the California State Athletic Commission. He was to have faced WAMMA heavyweight world champ and the most dangerous fighter on the planet Fedor Emelianenko in the heavily hyped main event.

Atencio has spent the last couple of days scrambling to find a suitable replacement but apparently came up short despite the number of fighters lining up to take a crack at Fedor. And really, it makes sense. I wasn’t excited about seeing the most-likely substitute, middleweight Vitor Belfort, pack on a few extra pounds to take up the challenge. Ditto Strikeforce up-and-coming heavyweight Brett Rogers and Sengoku prospect Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, who went on MMAWeekly Radio on Thursday to publicly throw his hat in the ring: “History has shown Fedor’s had problems with smaller athletic guys that he fights. Bigger guys, he just rolls right through ’em. The smaller guys, or the guys that can move real well, give him problems. I want that fight because I think I can win. I can beat this dude. Granted, he’s got heavy hands. Everybody has flaws. Styles make fights. I can see my style causing him a lot of problems.”

Hell, even the deadliest mustache in MMA, Don Frye, and bobbleheaded bruiser Jeff Monson were offering up their Fedor-slaying services.

“If Tom [Atencio] was smart, he’d have me fighting Fedor instead of whoever he’s hiring on a one-week notice, Frye is quoted as saying in several sources. “My phone works if he wants a real fight with someone who’ll sell a fight in four days, somebody who will beat that bald-headed commie too. [Fedor] ain’t seen anything I have to offer. He built his whole reputation as a waffle house chef. They’ve been serving him up ham and eggs with a side of canned tomatoes. I’ll bring it. And if he can bring it, you’ll have the best fight you’ve ever seen on the planet.”

Frye, who will face fellow wannabe-Fedor-killer King Mo in the main event of M-1 Breakthrough event on August 28, may be a bit past his prime for Fedor but he sure knows how to give good quote.

As for Monson, he told Five Ounces Of Pain, “I’d definitely love to see me fight Fedor. It’s a perfect match-up. He’s the guy I’m destined to fight. I want to be the guy to beat him. I’d definitely love to be carried off afterward… after I submit him. My goal is to be the best in the world, even if it’s for one fight.”

And who can blame them for wanting a shot at Fedor when, according to Dave Meltzer of Yahoo! Sports, Affliction was dangling a $500,000 carrot in front of potential opponents until Atencio pulled the plug?

Incidentally, the one fighter not in the UFC who might have interested me was behemoth Bobby Lashley, who actually expressed no interest in taking on the Russian juggernaut.

Meanwhile, UFC president Dana White must be giggling his face off.

Things are still up in the air over at Affliction. Vitor Belfort has agreed in principle to step up to fight Fedor Emelianenko at the August 1 Affliction: Trilogy event following heavyweight Josh Barnett’s positive test for steroids. But nothing’s been signed, and there’s still a very remote possibility that Brett Rogers could step in if Strikeforce gives him the okay (and if he actually wants to take on Fedor). Those are two very big ifs as it doesn’t do Strikeforce any favours to loan out one of its top heavyweights for a Russian smackdown and I can’t imagine Rogers could be ready in time to make the bout anything more than a smackdown.

Meanwhile, it looks like Michael Bisping may have his next opponent: Wanderlei Silva. The two are tentatively scheduled to square off at UFC 105 in Manchester, England, on November 14. Again, no deal has been signed, but the time is right. Bisping will be back up to speed following his brutal KO at the hands of Dan Henderson at UFC 100 while Silva’s last fight was a controversial decision loss to Rich “Ace” Franklin at UFC 99. I’m sure both fighters would love to end 2009 on a high note.

Ditto Bisping’s Wolfslair teammate Cheick Kongo, who could face Frank Mir at UFC 107 in Memphis, TN. The French striker is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Cain Velasquez at UFC 99 while Mir lost to Brock Lesnar at UFC 100. Already headlining the UFC 107 card is Kongo’s other Wolflair pal Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and his fellow Ultimate Fighter coach Rashad Evans.

Again, until it’s all in ink and nobody fails a drug test, nothing is definite.

Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) is riding a 12-fight winning streak and being hailed as the “next big thing.” At 35-7, Renato “Babalu” Sobral hasn’t been the “next big thing” since he lost to Chuck Liddell the first time. When the two meet at Affliction: Trilogy on August 1 it will be interesting, not the least because Mousasi, an Iranian-born Dutch resident, has a pretty well-rounded game that targets an opponent’s weak points pretty well. For example, against strikers like Mark Hunt and Melvin Manhoef, he takes them to the ground and submits them. Against a submissions guy like Sobral, on the mat is the last place he wants to be and Mousasi has proven more than capable on his feet. But with Josh Barnett gone from the card, this is now the fight I’m most looking forward to.

This really steams me. Not that Josh Barnett has tested positive for steroids for the second time in his professional career. Okay, I’m a little upset that he got caught. But I have no problem with him taking a banned substance. They’re his balls, he can shrink ’em if he wants to.

A lot of fighters take drugs, we just don’t hear about it because they’ve gotten really good at masking them for the drug tests or cycling themselves off the juice beforehand so they test clean. So Barnett, or any pro fighter, taking steroids doesn’t mean jack shit to me. This ain’t the Olympics, where I do expect a certain purity of the competition to be maintained (fuck you, Ben Johnson!). And if I was Barnett and about to step in against Fedor Emelianenko, I’d be looking for any and every advantage I could find. Steroids, HGH, PCP, a shotgun, some of that gamma shit that made Bruce Banner green, anything.

So why am I pissed off? Because now I have to watch Fedor (30-1) treat puny little Vitor Belfort like a punching bag at Affliction: Trilogy on Aug. 1. Makes me think one thing: Hulk smash! I thought Barnett (24-5) had a legitimate shot against Fedor. Well, as legitimate as it can be when you’re jamming needles in your ass to get the job done, but whatever.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio confirmed Wednesday that Barnett has been pulled from the fight because the California State Athletic Commission will not license him as a result of a positive drug test. Meanwhile, Barnett is going to go down swinging. “I took my test three weeks ago. I would have thought I would have heard something by now…No matter what happens with this, I can assure you I will clear my name. This will not be something that I am defined by,” Barnett told Sherdog. Barnett was suspended for six months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission in 2002 due to a post-fight urinalysis that revealed the presence of three anabolic agents (Boldenone metabolite, Fluoxymesterone metabolite and Nandrolone metabolite) in his body when he defeated Randy Couture to win the UFC title. To this day, he denies taking performance-enhancing drugs in advance of that fight. Now, he’ll undoubtedly face another lengthy suspension from U.S. competition that I’m sure he believes he doesn’t deserve.

Doesn’t matter. The show must go on. And Affliction isn’t like the UFC with a large stable of fighters to draw from. It must move quickly. And apparently it has.

A few fighters were being considered as replacements, including Bobby Lashley and Belfort. But when Lashley, the WWE wrestler-turned-Bob Sapp killer, was asked about stepping up against the biggest badass on the planet, he pussied out. “I don’t know if I would want it right now. Since the last fight, I haven’t really been into training again. That fight is next week. That would be something I would really have to take a look at. To just jump in there probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing for me right now,” Lashley said. He’s right, it’s probably not a smart move. I get that. He’s four fights into his MMA career and as we all know fighting the top dog early in their career never did any pro wrestler any favours.

Meanwhile, Belfort (18-8) is more than willing to forego his middleweight bout with Jorge Santiago on the same card for a shot at Fedor. Never mind that Belfort is a 185-pounder and Fedor usually weighs in around 235. Belfort has won his last four bouts, three of them by knockout, with his last victory a first-round KO of Matt Lindland at Affliction: Day of Reckoning in January (coincidentally, Lindland moved up in weight to fight Fedor in 2007 and it wasn’t pretty). Xtreme Couture striking coach Shawn Tompkins, who has been training Belfort at the Las Vegas-based camp in preparation for the Santiago bout, told MMA Junkie that Belfort is currently walking around at 205 pounds and could easily make 210-215 pounds. Still, even if Belfort starts carbo-loading now and doesn’t stop until the opening bell, well…again, Hulk smash!

But I can see why Belfort would take the fight. If he loses, well, nobody expects him to win anyway, so a loss isn’t really a loss and he’ll get plenty of respect just for going in there like that. But if he wins, he’s a fucking giant slayer. I mean, it would be the biggest upset in MMA history. And imagine what Dana White would pay to sign him to a UFC contract?

The prospect of a colossal upset aside, it’s still not the best fight if you’re an MMA fan, though. Win or lose, Lashley would’ve at least given us some idea if he’s for real or not. And what about Brett Rogers? The 10-0 bruiser knocked out former UFC heavyweight champ Andrei Arlovski in just 22 seconds at a Strikeforce event in June (granted, Fedor softened him up a bit by beating Arlovski with one punch in January). I wouldn’t mind seeing Fedor punch the mohawk off of his head. Or how about BJJ ace Fabricio Werdum? He’s got nothing to do since Alistair Overeem had to withdraw from their Aug. 15 Strikeforce heavyweight title bout because he wasn’t done healing from his last bar fight. And Werdum also has a submission win over Fedor’s brother, Aleksander, on his resumé to give a Werdum vs. Fedor matchup a little drama. Hell, I’d even half-like to see them toss Tito Ortiz into the cage with Fedor, as Mike Straka over at Fox Sports suggests. Ortiz says he wants a piece of the Russian champ at some point, why not now? Any Ortiz beating is a good beating in my book.

In the end, what can be learned from all this? The lesson for Barnett is either get off the juice or learn a better way to beat the test. Yeah, his career is probably going to take a serious hit because if this, but he’ll be back, just like Sean Sherk. People love comebacks, especially in sports. He may never get another crack at a title but he’ll make plenty of money doing what he loves, especially if he actually came forward and apologized for his mistake.

The lesson for MMA is that out-of-competition drug testing works while testing right before and right after a fight not so much. If they’re serious about cleaning up the sport, this is the way to go. So the question becomes, will we see more athletic commissions demand out-of-competition testing? Or will they feel the pressure not to from fight organizations who don’t want to see a high-profile card get thrown into chaos at the last minute?

Has the sky fallen, the sea boiled, the dead risen from the grave? If the latest rumour on Bloody Elbow turns out to be true then it’s time to make peace with your maker. According to BE, Tito Ortiz has patched things up with UFC president Dana White, leaving the door open to fill the vacant slot opposite Rich Franklin at UFC 103.

Seems the Huntington Beach Bad Boy was on Tapout Radio and had this to say:

“I’m very thankful for Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta from the UFC and I’m glad that me and Dana (White) kind of got to brush each other off. We may not still like each other or whatever but we came to amends – which is awesome. I gotta thank Strikeforce for giving me an opportunity and I want to thank Affliction for giving me an opportunity.”

As I wrote last week, Ortiz is close to signing a four-fight deal with Strikeforce and was also banned from last weekend’s UFC fan expo.

So is Ortiz really heading back into the UFC fold? It’s a sign of the apocalypse if it happens. Although I think it’s pretty safe to make long-term plans, take out a mortgage, have a kid, because this is all just speculation based on a rather vague interview quote about about Ortiz and White getting to “brush each other off” and making “amends.” Sure, Ortiz’s return would be huge and bring instant buzz to his first fight (and subsequent fights unless he gets creamed out of the gate). But I don’t think Ortiz in the UFC is in the cards.

UFC president Dana White wants Fedor Emelianenko in the UFC. Has for years. Once hoped to pit the Russian juggernaut against Randy Couture. On Saturday, after Brock Lesnar solidified his position at the heavyweight champ at UFC 100, White assured everyone that a Lesnar/Emelianenko superfight would happen, it was not only inevitable, it was close to a reality.

Well, Dana White doesn’t always get what he wants. We all knew this fight was never going to happen. All of us except Dana White, that is.

Fedor would never give in to the restrictions a UFC contract would place on him, namely exclusivity. Fedor wants to compete in combat sambo tournaments, he wants to compete in Affliction, where he is the heavyweight champ and makes buckets of money, and beyond all that there’s just no upside to fighting Lesnar or anyone else in the UFC except fame and money, which Fedor already has plenty of. And there’s a huge downside – if he loses then he’s no longer the great Fedor Emelianenko, no longer the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, no longer unbeatable. He would be less mythic, less legendary. Fedor has too much pride to allow that to happen.

All this comes about as the result of a new interview with Fedor on HDNet’s Inside MMA with Bas Rutten, ostensibly to hype Fedor’s Aug. 1 Affliction bout with his drinking buddy, Josh Barnett.

While Fedor says he’d like to face Lesnar, “At the present time, I don’t think so, I don’t think you’ll see me in the UFC, just because the terms, and the manner in which those terms are offered, are not acceptable today.”

Unless White is willing to make some major concessions, Fedor fighting in the UFC is as likely as Tito Ortiz fighting in the UFC again.