Re: Other Upcoming PPV's Yea, I`ve enjoyed WEC`s cards too. I kind of think they should have kept their LHW division, UFC`s LHW division is stacked anyway.
Re: Other Upcoming PPV's So the rumour is the UFC has been playing some serious hardball, calling in favours (and making threats) all over Vegas to prevent Affliction from putting a show on. And they've succeeded. Affliction has indefinitely postponed their Day of Reckoning card--messing up the training schedules of its athletes--and will be rescheduling for a California event instead. Stay tuned.
Re: Other Upcoming PPV's update, Affliction II is in January now and Fedor is rumored to be on the card.
Re: Other Upcoming PPV's DREAM.6 finalized. Note: Nick Diaz vs. Mach Sakurai is off. UFC veteran Kuniyoshi Hironaka replaces Diaz but I don't think the fight is for the DREAM WW championship anymore.
Re: Other Upcoming PPV's Shinya Aoki has been added to DREAM.6 with Todd Moore (who?) as his opponent.
Re: Other Upcoming PPV's That Dream 6 card has A LOT of squash matches, this is just another one. outside the Middle Weight GP Finals, I think the only other really competitive fight is Overeem vs Cro Cop but that's because they're both so inconsistent. I'm going for Overeem in the fight though. I'm also really interested in seeing Sergei Kharitonov's fight too He shouldn't have a lot of problems with Might Mo so long as he takes it to the ground.
for the World Victory Road card you mean.. if you're reading along this thread, it sounds like this is for Dream 6. I'm actually anxious for the Dream.6 card, I want to see the Manhoef vs Mousasi fight for one. ManHoef is a beast standing up, but I believe Mousasi is the most rounded fighter left. It looks like they gave Jacare an easy match. Because of this and how difficult it will be for either Manhoef or Mousasi to win, I thikn Jacare can win it all. Personally that wouldn't make him a top ten MW, but rather fortunate more than anything else. Cro-Cop vs Overeem is interesting too because I wonder if Cro-Cop returns to form, or if being a HW suits Overeem and his conditioning issues better. getting a chance to see Aoki, Mach, Akiyama, the entertainment that is Minowaman and (the shell of) Sakuraba is an added bonus too
Sounds like the Affliction card doesn't actually have a set date or a venue pinned down, yet. President Tom is promising the event will take place in the first quarter of 2008 with a heavily reworked card--meanwhile, Affliction fighters, including Fedor, are looking for other fights. Fedor is expected to fight a Japanese tomato can on New Years in Saitama or Tokyo.
Roger Gracie has been replaced by Mo Lawal, who has no pro fights and will be taking on somebody with over 60 in Travis Wiuff. But Lawal is a wrestling champion.
So Affliction seems to be in trouble now. Still no set date or venue for their next event. The proposed main event of Fedor vs. Barnett isn't happening, according to Barnett's manager. Barnett is also angling to fight in Japan around NYE, according to some reports. Affliction is supposedly going to pay Arlovski over a million dollars if he beats Roy Nelson at EliteXC. That's a lot of t-shirts. Fedor is supposedly gearing up to fight some robots or a midget in a Godzilla costume or something in Japan on NYE so the odds of him fighting on the Affliction card in January are slim. Add to that the UFC putting on a huge NYE show that will draw most of the MMA worlds attention then following it up with two events in January, book-ending Affliction's tentative Jan-24th date, headlined by Franklin/Henderson and Penn/St. Pierre, and it seems like they are going to get ignored. There still isn't an official number on how many PPV's Affliction scored the first time around--supposedly between 70-80,000, depending on the source. Whatever momentum they had now seems gone with their October show being cancelled and moved back another quarter. Their co-promotion with Golden Boy might mean something but for now it just looks like marketing. I don't know what they still might have up their sleeve.
Mirko Cro Cop has announced he will be rematching Alistar Overeem on NYE at the next Dream event, which may be the first round of a heavyweight tournament.
And LOL at all those anti-UFC/Dana White fanboys who were crying "Affliction is putting on the best card of the year, the UFC is in trouble" Of course they put on a great show, they put all their eggs in one basket and they're nearly cooked. If Elite XC and Affliction could merge, then we'd have something. Elite would do shows on CBS and Showtime and carry the Affliction name when doing PPV's. Throw the big boys on CBS once or twice and build up interest in a PPV. They would acctually have a chance to survive.
OMG, I can see it now, 5-6 name HW's and 11 can's who will be 1st and second round fodder for Cro-Cop, Gracie, Overeem, Hunt and ????
Other than Affliction fighters who could compete if they don't have a card together for January... Kharitonov, Hong Man-Choi, Randleman, Fujita, Schilt, Sapp, Yoshida, Aleks, Waterman, Monson... maybe Ricco Rodriguez... so yeah, not a star-studded affair but maybe enough to make it intersting.
maybe aleks E. too if he's banned in the states. I can see the Japanese officials not worrying about hepititis too much for the sake of a fight yeah Sergei would be favored to go far IMO.
What the hell is Joe Silva thinking? This guy can put together some good fights but he keeps telling guys that they're getting title shots when they have in-between fights in the meantime, now he's promoting guys before they fight... talk about throwing ice on a fighter. No wonder we're seeing guys like Florian/Cote/etc. fighting safe.