Comments on: UFN 14 or Affliction: BANNED, which was better?

By: ctownhood

ctownhood — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:38:37 +0000

On the strength of the final 3 fights (Barnett – Rizzo, Arlovski-Rothwell, Fedor-Sylvia). I’d say the Affliction card was better. But, the UFC churns out quality events 12-15 times a year. I don’t think Affliction will make it past 4 events.

By: islandguy666

islandguy666 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:40:11 +0000

I skipped back and forth and it worked out pretty well. I got to see all the important moments in the Arlovski fight. Flipped over to catch the Silva fight then back to see the end of the Arlovski. Then caught the Fedor – Sylvia massacre. That was pretty well everything I wanted to see.

I love the new Arlovski (or is that the old Arlovski??), I hate the new Brandon Vera. And Time looked like.. well just Tim. Didn’t he used to have more than one punch? I think he used to kick too, no?

By: Sergio G. Hernandez

Sergio G. Hernandez — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:57:47 +0000

“it was filled with HEAVYWEIGHTs, which has proved time and time again to be the weight class fans want to see (including this fan).”

Is that why the highest grossing MMA events are headlined by any other weight class BESIDES heavyweight?

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:34:26 +0000

Lots of love for the UFC, but I think #32 has it spot on. Dream delivered with a near-perfect card, and even though the production quality hurt Affliction, it brought back star power that hasn’t been seen state-side in a long time.

By: eichoro

eichoro — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:33:48 +0000

Everyone who voted for the UFN must be on crack. Yeah, in terms of production, Affliction was definitely sub-par, but at the same time, it still had a very Affliction-like feel to it (with the death metal and the red lighting).

The Affliction event had better talent, better fights, highlight-reel finishes in it’s last three fights, and it was filled with HEAVYWEIGHTs, which has proved time and time again to be the weight class fans want to see (including this fan). Meanwhile, the UFN was loaded with second-tier talent, barring Vera and Silva, and both of those guys fought a bunch of chumps. The outcome of the Silva fight HAD NO RELEVANCE either. It was just a “let’s see if Anderson Silva can fight at 205″ type thing. Great, he can fight at 205. Now what? He’s gonna go back to middleweight.

I really hope the Affliction event succeeds. Just its willingness to go out and get heavyweight fighters is all I need, since the UFC thinks that heavyweights are unimportant. (We all know where Randy Couture wants to go after his little court case is over.)

By: Rex

Rex — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:22:26 +0000

1. Dream
2. Affliction
3. UFC

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:16:49 +0000

I watched UFN and caught the Affliction fights on the web today. I can do without Megadeth or any other rock/rap artist performing at MMA shows. Stinks of a circus act. The fight quality was fairly even. You can’t say none of the UFN fights had any meaning. Franca-Edgar went a long way to establishing the LW landscape. After Velasquez’s destruction of O’Brien, I’m sure his next fight will have a lot more significance. Production-wise, there was no contest. UFC production is always top-notch and EliteXC/Affliction could learn a lot.

People say that Affliction “pays fighters what they deserve” but we’ll see how far in the hole they will be after a few shows. Remember, the UFC racked up $44 million in debt before they started turning a profit, and I’m sure they were paying the fighters nowhere near what they’re making now.

By: neorules

neorules — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:18:06 +0000

you people who bash the other org cards should be shot …
Its friggin MMA … Dont buy the ppv if you dont choose too, and stop your
silly bitchin. If your a fan, it doesnt matter what the org is .. Just Appreciate
the sport and its progress. So for the people who are comparing the Affliction show vs the UFN .. Do us all a favor and SHUT THE FUCK UP !!!
Stay in your moms basement and look at your dads old porno mags ..

By: ACK!

ACK! — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:36:27 +0000

I watched Affliction on PPV first and then caught the re-air of UFN 14 on Spike.

And, overall, I thought Affliction’s card was much, much better. I just couldn’t get into most of the fights on UFN 14. I was psyched to see Markham’s UFC debut and Velasquez vs. O’ Brien, but the other fights held little significance to me personally. Even the main event was a pretty piss-poor excuse to manufacture another sick Silva knockout for the next Ultimate Knockout DVD…

Affliction, on the other hand, was a refreshing change of pace even with it’s production warts. Basically every fight other than the terrible Buentello fight (granted it was setup at the last second) kept my interest if for no other reason than to see the guys I grew up idolizing back in action. Belfort, Babalu, Barnett, and even Rizzo all looked like they have plenty of great fights left in them and Arvlovski and Fedor both appear to be world-class fighters in their prime. As a bonus, Pyle and Hominick put on good shows as well. Particularly Hominick, who looked impressive against Young and might be ready to make a statement at 145…

I could go on, but in the end I care about great fights and Affliction has shown a willingness to pay give fighters the contracts they deserve to put together stacked cards that have real meaning to MMA fans. Unfortunately, the UFC couldn’t appear more opposite than they did with UFN 14…

By: bubbafat

bubbafat — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:15:06 +0000

Bottom line, production aside, I got to see 6 top ten HW’s in exciting fights and some descent prelim and undercard fights for less than what the UFC charges me(PPV). I don’t feel guilty about recording the UFC and watching it later at all. No complaints outta me at all, I got almost 10 hrs of gr A MMA on TV, and 2 hrs of Dream5 on the internet this weekend. I’m still wired from it all.

By: Jackyl

Jackyl — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:44:52 +0000

I watched UFN live and caught most of the Afflicton fights online. Affliction had some great fights and I liked the matchups. Some real good KO finishes and the destruction of Sylvia was fckn awesome. Of course we all thought Fedor would win but that was just wrong! As cool as that was the destruction of Irvin was even better. Especially after all that shit he talked. I agree Affliction needs to work on the production. I’m pretty sure I’ll pay for Randy vs Fedor.

By: doubleA-ron

doubleA-ron — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:36:38 +0000

I agree w/ #4. All the attention was on the UFC and Affliction show, but Dream snuck right in and stole the show. I don’t enjoy watching fighters entrances and usually fast forward through them, but man you have to watch the entrances of all the dream fighters. The light show they put on is amazing and that japanesse woman anouncer is great. Them bringing all the fighters in together is great also and fighters don’t call each other out they are privelaged to fight each other. The audience being so quiet while there is no action and then bursting out when the action happens, wow! DREAM WINS!

By: Fabricio

Fabricio — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:22:24 +0000

Love the ring, contrary to popular opinion it speeds things up tremendously.

Dream 5 was the BIG winner with Affliction a close second.

UFC was solid as always.

By: JacRabbit

JacRabbit — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:50:28 +0000

Didnt like the ring, but to be honest I’m not in broadcasting and as far as production goes, Affliction seemed to do perfectly fine with me. Luckily, I had both shows recorded–I was able to FFD through Megadeth…

All-in, I watched affliction first and UFN right after–UFN was boring.

By: flyingogoplata

flyingogoplata — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:44:54 +0000

My vote is with the UFN card. THe AA and Fedor fights were exciting as was the Hominick fight. Other than that, I was generally unimpressed. And not to beat a dead horse here but I could have done better production wise with the video function on my phone and a toy karaoke machine.

The UFN card, while lacking in “big names” aside from Silva had some really good fights. The Markham KO was great. The Johnson/Burns fight was an exciting back and forth battle. Edgar/Franca showed some exciting standup and great ground game. Velasquez and Silva were exciting and on their games. The only bad fight was Vera’s and it was still 10 times more exciting than the Lindland fight, but then again watching Polka dancing is 10 times more exciting than witching Lindland fight!

By: Stephen Rhodes

Stephen Rhodes — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:44:38 +0000

Both events had their high and low points. Affliction’s Fedor-Sylvia and Arlovski bouts were very good. On the other hand, UFC had Anderson Silva laying waste demolishing James Irvin and the Edgar-Franca fight which is very good, as well. Affliction needs to work on their production some – maybe that’s due to this being their first time. UFC, at least in my humble opinion, had some improved graphics and Rogan and Goldberg were good, as usual. But as for myself, I watched all of the UFC event on Spike and watched portions of the Affliction event. All things being equal, I have to say that I give the nod to the UFC card.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:43:35 +0000

Heh. I liked the UFC card a bit more because Affliction was too long and took too long to get going. If you took the top five fights from each, I’d say Affliction — but that’s not what they did, so UFC gets my nod.

But I did screw up and ruin a slight bit of enjoyment for both me and my buddy who watched with me. We were discussing the fights and I said I just hoped that one could be as exciting as Torres-Maeda, and he mentioned he hadn’t seen that. So I pulled it up on my DVR (yes, it’s still not deleted) and we watched it. Around 9:15pm. Before any of the other fights.

Critical mistake, let me tell you.

By: bcolflesh

bcolflesh — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:39:49 +0000

“# 5 bcolflesh Says: ——–
followed by Dolloway’s Peruvian necktie on Forbes.
???? WHAT ???? you mean taylor”

Doh! – you are correct – I was actually looking at Forbes.com when I typed that, lol…

By: sven

sven — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:26:42 +0000

I thought both cards were ok. I never expected the Affliction card to be the epic PPV to end all PPV’s that so many others did. Its hard to have that many HW’s on one show and have it be great no matter their ranknings. It was still a good for a first show though. The UFC show turned out pretty good too considering it was thrown together at the last minute.

Dream 5 was better than both though.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:20:38 +0000

Production and technical issues aside, I loved the Affliction card. Not only was I satisfied, I came away wanting more, and hoping PPV did well enough that they’ll put on a second show, and soon. I’ve said before, I actually like the ring, since I feel it lends itself better for presentation, and better camera work. It does have it’s problems of course, but it doesn’t take anything away for me personally.

I tried to watch the rebroadcast of UFN, and simply couldn’t. It was the same tired formula, with the same tired commentating, and fairly unimportant fights.

Conclusion: UFN felt like it was just going through the motions with a sub-par card. Affliction felt like a true event, and every fight on the card delivered, save the Lindland gas fest.