Affliction

(The universal symbol for "I'm choking, and I'm a habitual steroid user.")

On Friday’s edition of SIRIUS Fight Club, I referred to Josh Barnett as “the most notorious steroid-user in MMA history.” At this point, after two high-profile, career-fucking steroid busts, that statement is pretty much indisputable. But let’s not forget that Barnett’s latest positive test — which sent a stake through the heart of Affliction’s MMA promotion — only wound up hurting Barnett, Affliction, and the handful of fighters on Affliction’s roster who didn’t immediately find new homes. For literally everybody else in the world of mixed martial arts, it was the best thing that could have possibly happened. Seriously. Think about it…

1) Affliction’s collapse saved “Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg” from being one of the most cursed events of all time. On July 7th, we were OMG’ing over the fact that Strikeforce’s 8/15 fight card was going to feature four title fights. By last Thursday, it had lost three of those title fights. Alistair Overeem was out with a hand injury. Joe Riggs was out with a mysterious drug reaction. (In the absence of any other information, we’ll just assume it was a heroin overdose. Get well soon, Joe.) And Josh Thomson was out with a bum toe. It would be a nightmare scenario for any promoter. But instead of a buckshot, ragged-ass event patched in with replacements from their own roster, Strikeforce was able to improve their card using Affliction refugees.

(Props: Sherdog via MMA Mania)

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker can't even take one goddamned vacation to Italy without the world falling apart back home. In this video interview, Coker responds to all the recent speculation about Fedor Emelianenko's possible signing to Strikeforce (it's not happening yet, at least), and a reported last-minute attempt to merge Strikeforce with Affliction (not even close). Coker explains that Fedor's current crop of suitors include boxing promoters and network television, and discusses why he didn't want to "sell out" Brett Rogers for the Fedor fight.

On the actual reason for Affliction's demise, Coker says "escalating the fighter purses way beyond the true value, I think sooner or later the natural laws of economics apply to all businesses, and it finally applied to Affliction." How true. And if Fedor ever did sign with Strikeforce? "I feel pretty confident that we could give him four or five different opponents that would make sense for him."

("Hey Lesnar, I heard you like guns. WELL HOW DO YOU LIKE THESE?!?" Photo courtesy of milwaukeemma.com)

Why let Strikeforce have all the fun in picking over Affliction's carcass? According to Sherdog, the heavyweight scrap between Ben Rothwell and Chase Gormley that was supposed to be featured on the undercard of "Trilogy" will now happen at UFC 104 (October 24th, Los Angeles). Rothwell has won 14 of his last 15 fights, with notable wins over Roy Nelson, Krzysztof Soszynski (twice), and Ricco Rodriguez, and a sole loss to Andrei Arlovski at Affliction: Banned. Gormley is a promising 6-0 heavyweight from Bodyshop Fitness Team who holds wins over Jon Murphy and Eric Pele.

But that could just be the beginning. InsideFights.com hears that a whopping twenty Affliction fighter contracts have been snapped up by the UFC. The names haven't been released yet — maybe they'll be revealed at Friday's "crazy" press conference — but considering guys like Vitor Belfort, Jorge Santiago, Takanori Gomi, and Paul Daley are still floating in the breeze, Christmas may be coming early for Dana & Co. We'd include Fedor Emelianenko on that list, but as long as M-1 keeps denying that their #1 asset is heading to the Octagon, there's no reason to keep playing with your emotions.

('It's quite simple, gentleman. All we require is a suitcase full of money, a crate of automatic rifles, twelve underaged prostitutes, and a helicopter to take us to the airport. Oh, and the helicopter must be painted with the M-1 Global logo. Do we have a deal?')

Now that Affliction has gone back to being merely the maker of terrible t-shirts and Fedor Emelianenko has lost another home to fight in, this should mean that the way is clear for him to sign with the UFC, right?  Enter Vadim Finkelchtein, also known around the Zuffa offices as Crazy Russian #1.  Yesterday he spoke to the official M-1 Global site about his new plans to profit off Fedor’s success now that Affliction is gone.  Fedor and his people are all in the U.S. and they plan to talk with several different organizations over the next few days, but Finkelchtein isn’t about to make this thing easy on anyone:

“This is the moment of truth that the UFC has talked about. Fedor and I are here in the States. If they want to come out and fly here, we are ready to conduct negotiations. Of course it still doesn’t imply we are ready to accept any conditions they’ll throw at us. We want to talk to the UFC about having Fedor compete against some of their fighters, but only within the framework of co-promotional efforts with M-1 Global.”

(What's he looking for?  A war.)

I spoke with Affliction VP Tom Atencio for this week’s SI column on his fight with local card dealer Randy Hedderick at tomorrow night’s “Ultimate Chaos” event in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Contrary to my suspicions before our talk, I came away convinced that Atencio isn’t doing this so much as a self-promotional Affliction publicity stunt, but rather because he genuinely wants to.  What makes me think so?  Mostly his reluctance to even talk about the fight, as well as mild surprise that anyone would want to talk about him considering the other fights on the card.

He also offered some insight on his life as a highly-publicized but low-level MMA fighter, as well as his career as a fight promoter.  And naturally he managed to slip in some shots at the UFC...