Arlovski 360, Ep. 1 – Watch more free videos

From the moment this video declares Fedor-Arlovski to be the most anticipated heavyweight bout in MMA history, for the "undisputed" heavyweight title, you know what you’re getting into.  Still, the look of the video is impressive for a DIY internet effort.  It rips off all the cool things about the HBO 24/7 series, though since they spend the entire time pumping up Arlovski it reaches none of the emotional depth. 

Oh well.  It’s still the best promotional tool we’ve seen yet for this fight that’s just over a month away.  If Affliction’s not embarrassed by that, they should be.

After the jump, Frank Mir gets deep, plus a little something extra that you may hate me for, but it’s for your own good.

(Dave Kaplan cleans up on "The Singing Bee’s" Girl Power Night.  No joke.  The money line: "You’re making me nervous, Fatone!" Thanks to reader bpd for this.)

- Inside MMA previews Arlovski/Fedor. (MMA Scraps)

- Wagnney Fabiano in no hurry to get WEC belt. (Tatame)

- Phil Baroni wants back in the UFC.  Good luck, bro. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Joe Rogan’s "Fight For The Troops" rant is pretty right on. (Fightlinker)

- Satoshi Ishii celebrates his birthday. (Suki MMA)

- Hong Man Choi not worried about midget Cro Cop. (Fighters Only)

- Dodgeball, Xtreme Couture style. (Xtreme Couture)

- If alcohol labels were more realistic. (Holy Taco)

- Goodbye Sparks, you will be missed. (Wall Street Fighter)

- The weirdest Jeff Goldblum moments are really weird. (Screen Junkies)

- Cop hits deer at 75 mph, and it goes flying. (Nothing Toxic)

(Photo courtesy of AfflictionClothing.com/DayofReckoning)

The online betting site 5Dimes was the first to put up odds for Affliction: Day of Reckoning’s main event, now offering a +325 underdog line for the Pitbull, and -475 for the Last Emperor; in other words, bet $100 on Andrei to win $375, bet $475 on Fedor to win $100. Apparently the line was first established at +400/-600, but it started to even out as money began flooding in for Arlovski. (According to BestFightOdds, BetCris‘s numbers are slightly more generous, and they’re already offering odds for the Josh Barnett/Gilbert Yvel match.) If you feel like taking a risk on the Pitbull, you may want to act soon, since your potential profit could decrease as Arlovski fans continue to drop cash on him.

Personally, I feel that betting against Fedor is always a bad move — even if Arlovski’s been hard at work, taking detailed notes. But 5Dimes and BetCris are also offering a far more interesting wager: Georges St. Pierre vs. BJ Penn at UFC 94. Though 5Dimes set the line at -245/+175 on Monday with Penn as the underdog, the numbers have already shrunk down to -210/+160, meaning that bets are coming down solidly on the Prodigy. If you think GSP has the edge here, definitely keep an eye on the odds to see if they go any lower for him.

Semi-related: Andrei Arlovski now refers to Tim Sylvia as "Pee Pee Taste." Brilliant.

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

If you feel like you didn’t get to hear enough about the awful-looking Kevin James film "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" during the Ultimate Fighter Finale, check out his appearance at the Spike TV Video Game Awards.  This sketch — which is every bit as cringe-inducing as the interview was and as the movie will undoubtedly be — clearly took about five minutes to write, including bathroom and coke breaks.  When they couldn’t figure out how to end it some genius came up with the idea to have Rampage come out and howl.  Problem solved.  I know Rampage and Kevin James are bros, but I feel like one is having a bad influence on the other here.

After the jump, Gary Goodridge’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, and more.

No matter what Andrei Arlovski was writing down in that video, he’s probably better off taking some of your suggestions. Out of the hundreds of entries we slogged through, here are the top five, which all earn their authors subscriptions to Fight! Magazine:

Ted Nutmeg: Dear Diary,
Well, it happened again today. It seems like every time I turn around some guy is pounding a pussy that I went through two years ago.

Shagen: "Try to do something in the first 36 seconds."

CrushCo: i? F????! ??tt?? ??ty? soo?.

Lysol: "Tell Seth Petruzelli not to make plans on the 24th."

Xian67: http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5765/notepadtransvn7.jpg

If your name has been called, please send your real names and addresses to feedback@cagepotato.com and we’ll get those subscriptions hooked right up for ya. Good times! As for the rest of you, cheer up by gawking at the lovely ladies in Fight!’s Girl Search finals. That always makes us feel better.

(Props: thepitbullarlovski)

You may have already seen this video when it started making the rounds last week, but above is a clip of Andrei Arlovski taking notes on some of Fedor Emelianenko‘s fights in preparation for their scheduled bout next month at "Day of Reckoning." What he’s writing, of course, is never revealed. So here’s our challenge to you: Give the vid a look and tell us what the Pitbull is jotting down at the 0:50-0:56 mark. The five (5) funniest/most creative entries win one-year subscriptions to Fight! Magazine, which is pretty much the best MMA mag ever. Leave your entries in the comments section below and feel feel to enter multiple times. Contest ends Wednesday night at midnight ET; the winner will be announced on Thursday. Good luck.

(‘It would be pleasure to hurt hand on your face very much.’)

Fedor Emelianenko broke his silence about his Combat Sambo loss this past weekend, telling Dave Meltzer that it’s no biggie. Sambo’s just something he does for shits and giggles. MMA is what he does for money:

“My Bulgarian opponent wasn’t a surprise,” said Emelianenko through an interpreter. “I always understand there could be the possibility of losing a bout. My opponent was European champion in combat sambo. But for me, sambo is a hobby. I enjoy participating in the sport, but it’s a different sport. It’s a sport scored based on throws and being taken to the ground. That’s happened to me in MMA with [Kazuyuki] Fujita and [Antonio Rodrigo] Nogueira. It’s not my occupation or my work, which is MMA. I think the result would be different under MMA rules.”

It’s not quite ‘Oh, Snap!’ worthy, but in Fedor terms that’s about as close to shit-talking as he usually likes to get. He makes a valid point, though. Sambo isn’t a real fight, and anyway he lost on points. Word has it that he flew in from Thailand not long before the match, and a source who spoke to Fedor at the actual event tells Cage Potato that the Russian doesn’t really seem too excited about Sambo these days, and may be doing it more out of patriotic obligation than anything else.

In other words, don’t get your hopes up, Andrei Arlovski. Fedor hasn’t fallen off just yet.

(Let’s try this again, “Ace”, this time with a little enthusiasm.)

Despite the fact that UFC 93 and 95 are taking place in Dublin and London respectively, they will not air for free on Spike TV, reports MMA Rated. Does that mean you’re going to have to pay more of your rapidly dwindling cash to see an event that goes live in the middle of the afternoon? Either that or wait until the videos hit the internet, and for some reason it’s considered “troubling behavior” for me to drink in front of my computer at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, even though it’s perfectly acceptable to do it in front of the TV on a Saturday. I blame this Puritanical society.

The explanation for why this is happening centers around Spike TV’s production budget. Broadcasting these overseas events is costly, and since both UFC 93 and 95 take place within the first two months of 2009, that would mean blowing a big portion of their budget in the first quarter. This, my friends, is a side effect of the UFC going global.

So now we’re looking at three pay-per-views in the first sixty days of the new year from the UFC, plus another one on January 24 from Affliction. I don’t know what your disposable income looks like these days, but it sure seems like someone’s got to lose in this scenario. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you could only afford two of these events without being forced to make extra money by letting your creepy neighbor install that webcam he keeps talking about. What’s it gonna be: Fedor-Arlovski (Affliction), Franklin-Henderson (UFC 93, with a side order of Coleman-Rua), Penn-St. Pierre (UFC 94), or Liddell-Silva (UFC 95, hopefully)? As a bonus question, how important will the undercards of said events be in your decision-making?

(Image courtesy of InsanityWeTrust.net)

Josh Gross at SI reports that Showtime Sports will be responsible for producing and distributing Affliction’s “Day of Reckoning” pay-per-view card on January 24th; an official announcement will come Monday. Showtime Sports produced all the ShoXC and EliteXC broadcasts on the premium cable channel, as well as the EliteXC events on CBS and the Strikeforce/EliteXC co-promoted “Shamrock vs. Baroni” pay-per-view in June 2007. So, expect a step up in quality from the bad lighting, bizarre camera angles, and poor pacing that plagued Affliction’s “Banned” show in July.

“Day of Reckoning” is still headlined by Fedor Emelianenko defending his WAMMA heavyweight championship belt against Andrei Arlovski. Gross also confirmed the addition of three other bouts: First, Matt Lindland and Renato “Babalu” Sobral will meet in a middleweight match on the main card; both fighters won decisions at “Banned,” with Lindland getting the better of Fabio Nascimento and Sobral edging out Mike Whitehead. [Ed. note: FiveOunces is reporting that the match will be contested at light-heavyweight.]

Fedor will return – Watch more free videos

Just a few weeks ago during the EliteXC on CBS broadcast Affliction promised us that Fedor would return. When and against who, that was left to the wondrous power of our imaginations. Now some of the specifics have been filled in with this new promotional video, which advertises a date (Jan. 24) and a firm opponent (Andrei Arlovski).

They appear to still be calling this event “Day of Reckoning,” just as they called it when it was supposed to in Las Vegas earlier this month. Given all the trouble they’ve been having, the title could turn out to be sadly appropriate. The official event website lists only Fedor and Arlovski on the fight card, but includes pictures of Vladimir Matyushenko, Josh Barnett, Renato Sobral, Matt Lindland, Vitor Belfort, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Chris Horodecki, and Jay Hieron. Not sure if that’s meant as implication that they’ll all be added to the card, or whether they just had some space to fill at the bottom of the page.

Now that they have an official date and a main event, we can probably expect them to announce something completely different next week.

Andrei Arlovski vs. Roy Nelson – Watch more free videos

I have to say this for AOL Fanhouse’s Michael David Smith, when he sinks his teeth into something he doesn’t let go until he gets what he wants. While the rest of us have been stuck on this Seth Petruzelli situation, he was focused on a different aspect of Saturday’s EliteXC event. Seems that the odd stand-up in the Andrei Arlovski-Roy Nelson bout (see above, the stand-up comes at around the 4:27 mark) bothered Smith. So he kept after referee Jorge Ortiz until he got an answer:

“When I’m working a fight, they’re told in the locker room before the fight to keep working, continue the action moving,” Ortiz said. “Nelson did attempt the kimura. When he lost the kimura, at that point they had spent a good part of the round on the ground and I felt there wasn’t a reasonable attempt at a submission, at a finish. At that point I decided: Let’s get them up. Let’s see if he can improve the position, because in my opinion there wasn’t a reasonable attempt at finishing the fight.”

“In my opinion he wasn’t active enough,” Ortiz said. “I thought he needed to be more aggressive on the ground to attempt to finish the fight, and when I feel the action is at a point where it’s stale and it’s not going anywhere, at that point is where I decide to change it up and get something going here.”

Of course, what he “got going” was a stand-up fight that was most definitely more in Arlovski’s favor than Nelson’s. That’s not to say that Nelson would have won without the stand-up, but he had achieved a dominant position on the mat with plenty of time left in the round.

“Big Country”, as you might imagine, was also none too pleased with the stand-up when I called him earlier this week to ask what he was thinking when Ortiz brought the fighters back to their feet.

(At least some people still do work for their half a mill, son.)

Before his bout with Andrei Arlovski on Saturday night, Roy Nelson said he wasn’t completely sure who was signing his check. Now we not only know it was Affliction, but we also know that “Big Country” and Arlovski made a combined $580,000 to represent the clotheir-turned-promoter on CBS. The bulk of that money — $500,000 with no win bonus — went to Arlovski for his impressive knockout victory. Even for Affliction, who likes throwing around money almost as much as they love skulls and chains, that’s a hefty price to pay to put one fight on someone else’s show. So was it worth it?

Aside from the exposure for their fighters, Affliction got their ban lifted long enough to throw their logos on the cage and get a few commercials in during the broadcast. As MMA Payout pointed out, that might say more about CBS’ ad sales for this show than it does for Affliction’s arrangement with Elite XC, but either way now there are a few million more people in the world who know about the Andrei Arlovski signature t-shirt line, and every little bit helps.

There’s also the matter of the aggressively vague “Fedor Will Return” ads (was anyone else reminded of the “Gabbo is coming!” ads from The Simpsons?). Beyond heaping more indignity on Tim Sylvia’s loss by pointing out that almost the entire fight can fit in one network TV spot, it does help get the word out to casual fight fans. The only problem is that when you don’t have a date or event to hype, you have to wonder what that’s really worth.

Affliction had a great opportunity with those ads to really advance public knowledge of their MMA organization. Instead they hyped their shirts and failed to tell us when and how we could pay them money to see their marquee fighter perform. I suppose you have to know that information yourself before you can pass it on to others, but isn’t that just one more reason for them to get moving on this January event?

Now we know why Kimbo Slice didn’t seem too bothered by his fourteen-second loss at Elite XC: Heat. Turns out he made half a million dollars for his brief night of work. That works out to $35,714.29 per second of cage time for Kimbo, which is an even better per second salary than Tim Sylvia received for his thirty-six-second loss to Fedor Emelianenko ($22,222.22, in case you’re curious).

It’s an especially impressive take when you consider that the live gate from Elite XC’s Ft. Lauderdale show was only $826,000. The only other fighter on the night to match Kimbo’s total was Andrei Arlovski, who was also paid $500,000 for his victory over Roy Nelson, though Affliction picked up the tab for both of them.

The full disclosed payout from Elite XC: Heat looks like this:

Kimbo Slice: $500,000
Seth Petruzelli: $50,000 (including a $15,000 win bonus)
Jake Shields: $50,000 (including $10,000 win bonus)
Paul Daley: $12,000
Andrei Arlvoski: $500,000
Roy Nelson: $80,000
Gina Carano: $25,000 (including $10,000 win bonus)
Kelly Kobald: $6,000
Benji Radach: $30,000 (including $15,000 win bonus)
“Ninja” Rua: $35,000

Kimbo Slice faces light heavyweight Seth Petruzelli, the man with the devastating front kick/jab combo. Relive the magic again and again. Things to take note of:

1) Kimbo’s tough guy act when he refuses to touch gloves.

2) Kimbo going face first onto the canvas a few seconds later.

3) At about the 0:57 mark, if you’re quick you can see Elite XC VP Jared Shaw at cageside screaming his head off at the referee, like any impartial promoter would surely do in that situation.

What a night. After the event Shaw spoke about that moment with MMA Rated, and even mentioned the possibility of a protest stemming from blows to the back of the head. That sounds fun. Videos of the evening’s other bouts are after the jump, courtesy of MMA-Core.

Spoiler alert: Ninja, Gina, Andrei, Jake, and Kimbo (!) are going to win, maybe all within the first round. If you’re curious about how exactly it’ll happen, read on. Hit that “more” link and refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest updates from the live CBS broadcast, comin’ atcha from the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. Seriously though, this is about to be some lopsided shit. Grab some beers.

Get this: At about 6:20 p.m. ET, MMA Rated passed along the word that Ken Shamrock sustained a cut above his eye in the last 24 hours while training, forcing him to pull out of tonight’s main event against Kimbo Slice. Frank Shamrock — who is handling commentary tonight for CBS — actually volunteered to step in as a last-minute replacement, but he isn’t licensed to fight in Florida, so EliteXC instead had their eyes on KOTC brawler/UFC castoff Seth Petruzelli, who was supposed to face Aaron Rosa on tonight’s undercard. Then, MMA Rated reported that a very shady doctor was found who cleared Shamrock to fight around 7 p.m., saving “Heat” from one of the greatest Epic Fails in MMA history. Well, we hope. MMA Weekly now says that the fight has a 50/50 chance of happening. Other sources say the fight is 100% dunzo.

Update: Ariel Helwani tells Ben Fowlkes (who tells me) that Seth Petruzelli is 100% in as Ken’s replacement. Wow. On the bright side, Kimbo is finally fighting a legitimate heavyweight who isn’t riding an eight-fight losing streak. This should be interesting…

Update #2: “JM” wins the t-shirt. Shoot your address and size to feedback@cagepotato.com, brah.

Elite XC’s Jared Shaw takes a little shot at yours truly in this MMA Rated interview, calling me Ben “UFC” Fowlkes, which I suppose is an implication that I’m pro-UFC and anti-Elite XC, although I like to think that my record as an equal opportunity critic speaks for itself. If an organization does dumb things, it’s my job to point it out. If one organization does more dumb things than others, they’re going to receive more criticism. That’s just how it works. If it makes me a hater, I can live with that. But since when do we all have to like everything?

$kala says he just wants some love for his fighters, not himself. Fair enough, Jared. You do have some good fighters in your organization. Guys like Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, Wilson Reis, Nick Diaz, and “Ninja” Rua, just to name a few. These are all fighters that I enjoy watching. But your fighters aren’t what you’ve been criticized for, and I think you know it.

Let’s take the event you’ve got this Saturday, for example. On the undercard you’ve got a few interesting scraps between guys like Paul Daley and Jake Shields, Benji Radach and “Ninja” Rua, and a sweet little co-promotional joint between Affliction fighters Andrei Arlovski and Roy Nelson (nice work scoring that, by the way, whether you had anything to do with it or not).

But your main event features a 3-0 fighter in Kimbo Slice, who has yet to face an opponent coming off a win, taking on a forty-four-year-old legend of the sport who hasn’t won a fight or even made it out of the first round in over four years. And that’s your main event.

(Props: Sherdog via BloodyElbow)

When Andrei Arlovski steps into the cage with Roy Nelson tomorrow night at EliteXC: Heat, one thing is guaranteed — his hands will be ready. The Pitbull has been training with boxing guru Freddie Roach at Wild Card Boxing Club since before his Affliction: Banned bout against Ben Rothwell. The above video features Roach discussing his star MMA pupil, claiming Arlovski could have a successful boxing career and lauding his willingness to learn: “My best champion Manny Pacquiao has great work ethic and Andrei’s right there with him, and that’s why they’re world-class fighters.” Will Arlovski be able to execute Roach’s “punches in bunches” philosophy en route to a win over Big Country? (Answer: Yes, probably.)

(Don’t go getting soft on us, Babyface.)

For a guy who seems like he’s getting screwed by his employer, Josh Barnett sure is keeping cool about it. First he had his fight with Andrei Arlovski put in jeopardy when Affliction decided they couldn’t pull off their October “Day of Reckoning” event in Las Vegas. Then, a few weeks later, they announce that Arlovski will be fighting on this Saturday’s Elite XC card (and will be paid well to do it), but he’ll face Roy Nelson instead of Barnett. And why? Barnett says he never turned the fight down, but Atencio says he “couldn’t get a hold of him.”

Barnett was cagey while telling his side of the story to MMA Weekly, but it sounds as if there’s something else going on here than just a simple case of miscommunication:

“I was disappointed, yes. That was supposed to be my fight. We talked about it at some point prior to going to Japan, and I found out that I didn’t get the fight while in Japan. I continued to work on some business there, especially after I found out I wasn’t getting the fight.”

Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound like a guy who just missed a phone call. It could be that Nelson comes a lot cheaper than “The Baby-Faced Assassin”, who has said repeatedly that he is not interested in fighting at a discounted rate.

In any event, whatever is going on between Barnett and Affliction seems to have implications beyond just this Elite XC co-promotion, as Barnett confirmed in no uncertain terms that he won’t be fighting Fedor in January.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Life in the Affliction offices must be a little like being married to an alcoholic. They seem to be making progress, taking steps in the right direction, and then you look out the window and see them passed out naked in the neighbor’s yard and realize it was all just a pleasant illusion. Affliction’s latest setback has to do with the main event for their second offering, which is maybe on January 24 or maybe not, depending on who you talk to.

While new acquisition Gegard Mousasi claimed it would be Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett in Affliction II, Barnett’s manager tells USA Today, “It is unlikely that Josh and Fedor will fight within the next few months.”

Affliction VP Tom Atencio also said that no fights have been confirmed for the event. It could be that they’re waiting to see how Andrei Arlovski does against Roy Nelson in his big network TV moment on Saturday night. If Arlovski steals the spotlight on Elite XC: Heat, it would make sense for Affliction to put him in the main event against Fedor right away to try and capitalize on that increased exposure.

They’ve got to figure out some way to make it pay, because according to Dave Meltzer Arlovski is poised to haul in seven figures if he beats Nelson this weekend, and Affliction is footing the bill. It’s great for Affliction to get their stuff on CBS, but Arlovski better be wearing several layers of Affliction t-shirts to make this little venture seem worthwhile.

(What, no odds on whether Gina will make weight?)

If betting odds are any indication of how competitive MMA bouts will turn out to be, expect a lot of one-sided blowouts on Elite XC’s CBS offering this Saturday night. Not that it’s any surprise, really. In fact, with five fights crammed into a two-hour time slot CBS is going to need some quick beatdowns if they don’t want to run way over and have to cut into precious local news time. In any event, Best Fight Odds supplies the most gambler-friendly betting lines for ‘Elite XC: Heat,’ and they break down like this:

Kimbo Slice (-325) vs. Ken Shamrock (+329)
Jake Shields (-550) vs. Paul Daley (+524)
Gina Carano (-550) vs. Kelly Kobald (+525)
Ninja Rua (-196) vs. Benji Radach (+210)
Andrei Arlovski (-428) vs. Roy Nelson (+385)

Some thoughts…

(You ready for this, America?)

I almost couldn’t believe it when I first heard the news: Elite XC had added a legitimately interesting big time bout to their next CBS show. No disrespect to “Ninja” Rua and Benji Radach or Jake Shields and Paul Daley. Those are fights worth tuning in for, even if Elite XC seems content to treat them as background scenery.

And Gina Carano fighting an opponent who’s coming off two straight losses while the opponent who really makes sense for her fights someone else on the same card? Sure, that’s cool too. And of course there’s the obligatory ‘Kimbo Slice beats up handpicked opponent’ fight that we’ve come to expect.

But Andrei Arlovski-Roy Nelson? Now that’s intriguing, Elite XC. I have to admit, I’m impressed. I wonder, however, if you’ve thought through all the potential ramifications.

On one hand, it’s brilliant. Elite XC links up with another struggling organization to see if they can’t form like Voltron and make something happen. This fight adds hardcore credibility to a card severely lacking in it. The fact that Elite had to go outside their own stable of fighters to find that credibility is something we’ll ignore for the moment. Fact is, they showed the “willingness to work with other organizations” that we always hear about but seldom see put to such good use. Bravo.

But here’s what I’m wondering: what happens if Arlovski/Nelson turns out to be a solid, technical, exciting MMA bout, as we all know it very well could be?

(Sorry, bro. Not this year.)

Poor Fedor. All he wants to do is fight some weird, mostly meaningless bout on New Year’s Eve every year. But all these damn contracts keep getting in the way. It’s almost as if people want the world’s top-ranked heavyweight to only fight top-ranked contenders. Fascists.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio told me yesterday that he has good reason to believe that all the talk about Fedor fighting in Japan this NYE is just idle chatter. Said Atencio:

He is not going to [fight on New Year's Eve]. We have a contract with Fedor. We have a great relationship with Fedor. I just spoke with the guys from M-1 Global and they assured me that he’s not fighting so wherever that came from is beyond me. There are a lot of rumors in this industry and a lot of speculation, but I was told through the partnership that we have that Fedor is definitely not fighting on New Year’s Eve.

Where it came from, obviously, was Fedor’s comments at Dream.6. But Atencio seems certain that the next time “The Russian Last Emperor” gets in the ring, it will be under the Affliction banner. As for when that might be, the details there are a little hazier.

Former IFL heavyweight champion Roy Nelson went from having a fight with Paul Buentello in Affliction, to having that fight cancelled, to signing a deal to face Andrei Arlovski on CBS, all in a matter of weeks. Now “Big Country” talks about the unpredictable nature of the fight game, who’s signing his paychecks, and more in this exclusive CagePotato interview.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me, Roy. I imagine it’s been an exciting week for you. When did you first hear about this offer?

Wednesday morning.

Really? That late?

Yeah. I got the news about three hours before Sherdog did. Talk about the last minute.

So what was going through your mind when they offered it to you?

You know, to fight Andrei is a big step in my career, so of course I was game. And what better stage than CBS, where you’ll get maybe 8 million viewers watching. Of course that’s something that I wanted to do.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Josh Barnett says he did not turn down a fight with Andrei Arlovski at ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on Oct. 4. Though talk centered on the possibility that Barnett bristled at the idea of taking a pay cut to help Affliction get their co-promotion on with Elite XC on CBS, “The Baby-Faced Assassin” declared in a MySpace blog post that he was not asked to take any such pay cut and did not turn down the fight:

I read somewhere that I had declined the fight because I would have had to take a pay cut. I suppose others may also formulate some story about me declining the fight for other reasons.

I never decelned to take this fight. I was never told that I would have any part of my pay reduced since working with Affliction. To my knowledge, no one has been asked to take a pay cut that fights for Affliction.

I did not turn down this fight.

Josh

Whether Barnett knows it or not, some Affliction fighters were asked to take pay cuts for the second show. Barnett already committed to fight at Sengoku 6 in November after news of the Affliction postponement, so he may never have been a realistic option for Elite XC. Now Roy Nelson gets Arlovski, and Barnett gets to go back to Japan and entertain all the loyal Josh-a-maniacs there.

In other Affliction/Elite XC news, Affliction COO Michael Cohen indicated that there will be an ongoing arrangement between the two organizations. Affliction’s postponed second event, now apparently scheduled for Jan. 24 (or maybe there’s no set date yet, depending on who you ask), will also be a co-promotional effort between Affliction and Elite XC, and will either air on CBS or Showtime:

(Network TV exposure makes Andrei feel like singing.)

Don’t look now, but Elite XC’s next offering on CBS is threatening to turn into a legitimately big time MMA event. Andrei Arlovski and Roy “Big Country” Nelson have reportedly been offered a bout against one another at Elite XC: Heat next Saturday. The fight will be an Affliction/Elite XC co-promotion. Like they say, the enemy of my enemy is my tentative friend as long as they’ll let me promote my t-shirt line.

If this sounds like late notice to be throwing a bout like this together, remember that both Nelson and Arlovski were prepping for bouts on Affliction: Day of Reckoning, which was set for October 11 until recently, so it’s reasonable to think that both guys are in fighting condition. However, while Arlovski was preparing for Josh Barnett, Nelson was getting ready to face Paul Buentello. Nothing against “The Headhunter” here, but he’s no Arlovski.

Needless to say, you can expect to see Arlovski-Nelson on the CBS portion of the card on October 4, but the bigger question is, what will this mean for the relationship between Affliction and Elite XC moving forward? Funny we should ask, because MMA Rated spoke with Jared Shaw about the deal, and he had this to say:

This is just one fight. This is a co-promoted fight and it’s the first time out and it’s the beginning of a working relationship, there’s nothing else in place. We hope that Roy Nelson vs. Andrei Arlovski is the beginning of a great budding relationship between Donald Trump’s Affliction and EliteXC.

Shaw says the two-hour CBS broadcast will now feature five fights, and had no problem saying that this news “hits Dana White hard.” We’ll see. One thing we know about Dana White is when you hit him, he usually hits back.

(‘How’s taste my co-promotion clusterfuck?’)

The more we hear about the Affliction/Golden Boy partnership, the stranger it begins to sound. First there was the official press release, which seemed to put more emphasis on “signature shirts” and apparel than on fights. It’s almost as if Affliction is looking for a way to retreat with dignity from the money-sucking void of fight promotion and get back to what they do best: selling overpriced, hyper-stylized clothing.

But aside from their own line of skull-themed t-shirts, what does Golden Boy get out of it? According to CEO Richard Schaefer, they hope to siphon off some of MMA’s young fan base and bring them back into the boxing fold:

“We believe Affliction and the relationships they have with that demographic, the identification they have within that demographic group I think will help bring boxing to these people,” said the Golden Boy CEO. “We think as well, many of the mixed martial arts fans are fans of combat sports, and what they’ve seen of boxing is a very exciting sport as well that maybe they will discover their love for the sport of boxing.”

Naturally, Affliction VP Tom Atencio hopes for the same thing in the other direction, which should tell Golden Boy something (as should those Vegas ticket sales) about just how much of an MMA fan base they may have to draw from. But in theory, at least, it sounds like an idea that can work. That is, if you get the right fights in front of the right audiences. Already things are off to a slow start.

ESPN.com reports that Golden Boy tried to sell HBO on the idea of adding the original “Day of Reckoning” main event — Andrei Arlovski vs. Josh Barnett — to the Oct. 18 pay-per-view boxing bout between Kelly Pavlik and Bernard Hopkins. HBO “respectfully declined.”

(Times Square, meet “The Pitbull” and “The Baby-Faced Assassin.”)

The dispute between the UFC and Randy Couture may be over, but the one between the UFC and Affliction still rages on. After telling reporters that he would be “fucking horrified” to see Affliction still in business in 2009, Dana White may be trying to speed their demise as Affliction heads to Las Vegas for its October 11 event. According to VP Tom Atencio, Affliction is being hindered by the UFC in their Sin City efforts:

“They’ve been messing with me every step of the way,” Atencio said. “There have been issues that I’ve been dealing with. So I can’t say it’s them, but there’s been things we’ve been dealing with that have never happened before, so I guess that’s why.”

Atencio didn’t specifically list how the UFC was messing with him, but when the IFL attempted to break into the Vegas market, they faced radio stations that wouldn’t air their ads and marketing groups who refused to work with them. The rumor was that the UFC had threatened any ad networks or radio stations who cooperated with their competition, suggesting that they’d lose out on much greater business in the future from the UFC.

Affliction could be facing some of those same problems, or worse, as they try to drum up interest in their live event. Ticket sales were a major boon for their first show, but if they can’t get that same level of fan support for this effort they’ll be forced to rely on pay-per-view revenue, which could very well be weaker than their first show due to the lack of Fedor Emelianenko‘s star power. That may be why they’re shelling out the dough for a Times Square billboard, hoping that PPV buys will save them even if no one shows up to the live event.

(Props: Steve Cofield)

(One is the loneliest number. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

With Randy Couture going back to his ex to try and work things out, this has to be a tough time for Affliction. They thought there was a real connection there, maybe a future between them. They even carved ‘Affliction + Randy Couture’ in the big tree out back. You have any idea how long it takes to carve all that with a pocket knife?

Then, out of the blue, Couture is back in the UFC’s arms and they’re as happy as ever. But Affliction VP Tom Atencio isn’t upset that the biggest fight they could possibly make is now impossible any time in the near future:

“Randy needs to do what he needs to do to handle his problems,” Atencio said. “I’m happy for him.”

“I think the biggest problem is people assume everything,” Atencio said. “The bottom line is Randy is our partner with Xtreme Couture. Randy is sponsored by Affliction. He’s been with us and we work with him. Randy needs to handle his legal problems with the UFC and he did so I am happy for him.”

That’s the spirit, stiff upper lip. You’ve still got Josh Barnett and Andrei Arlovski to put against Fedor. All is not lost. But what about Dana White’s assertion that he would be “fucking horrified” if Affliction is still in the MMA biz in 2009? Them’s fightin’ words!

Or not:

“Dana has his right to his opinion and he is very open about it and that is completely fine,” Atencio said calmly. “Since day one, I have always handled things this way. I don’t need to bite my tongue because I don’t need to talk shit about people.”

Man, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I almost miss Gary Shaw. At the very least, can’t Atencio have a son who will go flying off the handle from time to time? Is that too much to ask?

Some classic MMA goodness from the ’90s: First off is Andrei Arlovski’s unsuccessful pro MMA debut against Viacheslav Datsik (above), which went down in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the M-1 MFC World Championship on 4/9/1999; props to MMA Fight Girls for digging up the video. Fight starts at the 2:11 mark, and the Pitbull gets put to sleep about six minutes later. Arlovski would return to the cage a year later at the M-1 MFC European Championship, where he smoked Michael Tielrooy and Roman Zentsoz in a four-man bracket and caught the attention of the UFC.

Below is an absolutely insane video of Absolute Fighting Championship 1, a one-day, 32-man vale tudo tournament — yes, 32-man tournament — that took place in Moscow on 9/25/1995. Enormous future PRIDE fighter Ricardo “The Mutant” Morais made his MMA debut that day, stopping four opponents via strikes (all in less than two minutes apiece), before choking out Mikhail Illoukhine in the final. I guarantee it’ll be the most hardcore thing you see all week.

Ben Rothwell confirmed today that he will face Pedro Rizzo on the next Affliction show in Las Vegas on October 11. The bout has been officially signed, Rothwell told CagePotato.com, though it was agreed to on separate terms from his original contract, which means he will be taking a pay cut for this fight but still has two more fights at the previous rate on his existing contract with Affliction.

“[Agent] Monte [Cox] turned down their original offer for this fight, so that’s why he said none of his guys would be fighting on the show. Then they came back with another offer that was better, so we agreed to it,” Rothwell said.

Fighting a legend of the sport like Rizzo is something Rothwell says he’s ambivalent about, however.

“With Pedro, I not only respect his abilities, I watched him as a kid just getting into this sport. He’s one of the most down-to-earth, nicest guys in this sport, so on that level I don’t really want to fight him. But the fighter in me is amped for this. I’m going to go out there and do what I didn’t do against Andrei Arlovski.”

Rothwell said that he spoke with Rizzo at their first Affliction show and they both sensed that they may face each other next.

“I said I was going to ask for Buentello,” said Rothwell. “Then he said he was going to ask for Buentello. And Tim [Sylvia] also asked for Buentello.”

Rothwell criticized a report to the effect that he might face K-1 kickboxer “Mighty Mo” Siliga as completely false, adding that Siliga hadn’t ever been mentioned as a potential opponent.