sponsorships

(Sorry Kimbo, that goes for fluffers too.)

Though the fighters involved in EliteXC's "Saturday Night Fights" event stand to make record amounts of money from sponsorship deals, the way the fighters represent those sponsors is being strictly regulated by CBS. As FiveOuncesofPain reports:

[W]hile fighters can wear hats during their cage-walk entrance, they must wear an EliteXC hat while in the cage during their post-fight interview. The respective corner of a fighter also cannot drape a banner on the inside of the cage. Banners can only be displayed on the outside of the cage and can only advertise the fight camp that the fighter is representing.

Of course, CBS must give their blessing before a sponsor's name is allowed anywhere in a fighter's appearance, and not all sponsorships have made the cut. The most prominent 86'ing is that of Reality Kings, the porn web site company that Kimbo Slice used to bodyguard for, and which has had a visible place on Slice's clothing and signage during his professional fights. As Gary Shaw said during a conference call on Thursday, "We understand what’s socially responsible, and CBS has a very high standard for standards and practices. And every logo we put on or whatever we do goes through CBS in their standards and practices."

Disassociating MMA from porn is unquestionably a wise decision for this historic broadcast, and we can only hope that Mauro Ranallo has to submit all of his kooky metaphors for approval before the event as well. A girl-on-girl cagefight on national TV is edgy enough. Baby steps, people...

Over the last few months, we've often been surprised at how petty and short-sighted the UFC can be — but if this rumor is true, it represents a new low for Dana White & Co. According to a report on 5thRound.com, the UFC is trying to block the clothing line Affliction from sponsoring its fighters, due to Affliction apparently trying to start its own MMA organization. From the report:

We are still gathering all of the details about this story, but we have been able to confirm it with a couple of people within the MMA community. From what we’re being told, the UFC is no longer allowing the clothing line Affliction to sponsor its fighters...

The word is that the UFC was not happy about Affliction starting their own fighting organization. We currently aren’t sure if Affliction is partnering up with anybody or if they are going about it by themselves, but that was what we were able to confirm with our sources...

The last fighter to actually wear Affliction during an event was Georges St. Pierre at UFC 79 where he sported Affliction on his tights and gi. If you review UFC 80 and Wednesday’s Ultimate Fight Night: Swick vs. Burkman, you’ll notice that Affliction was noticeably absent from any fighter’s apparel.

Not sure how reputable these sources are, but since there's more than one of them, we'll put this in the "possibly true" file for now. What makes it more plausible is Affliction's association with Randy Couture. Couture's "Xtreme Couture" t-shirt line is a sub-label of Affliction, and if the UFC was petty enough to forbid the wearing of Xtreme Couture gear during Wanderlei Silva's UFC All Access shoot, then we'd believe they'd try to exert pressure on his parent company by banning Affliction altogether. Of course, what makes this less plausible is that the UFC's biggest stars — Chuck Liddell and Georges St. Pierre among them — all rep hard for Affliction. The UFC isn't crazy enough to damage relationships with their last remaining big names over t-shirts. Are they? We'll update you when we know more...