Affliction Wants to Work with UFC

Written by: Mat Houchens

Tagged with: affliction banned, Affliction Clothing, Affliction Working With UFC, dana white, fedor emelianenko, Fedor Emelianenko vs Randy Couture, randy couture, tim sylvia, tom atencio

Sunday, July 13, 2008, 17:35

This news item was posted in Affliction, UFC category and has 0 Comments so far.

In a story from MMA Junkie found from our MMA News Hub, it was stated on TAGG Radio that Affliction one day would like to work with the UFC to have one champion for each weight class.

If we can all come together and work together as one organization and we have an undisputed champion — heavyweight, lightweight, middleweight, etc. — then, yeah it’s great, but is it going to happen? I don’t know.

Is Dana White worried? I would say the obvious answer is yes. You don’t air a free event the same night as another organizer unless your worried. They’re all business decisions. He wants to protect his business as much as the next guy. Of course there is going to be some envy from Dana White. He’s revived UFC and MMA to what we know it as today and doesn’t want the next guy coming in and cashing in on what he worked so hard to build up.

There was a reason the UFC is what it is today and why it has been the most popular of the MMA Organizers for the past 15 years. Wouldn’t you be worried and protective of something like this? Tom Atencio seems to understand the logic.

[White] is obviously worried. By him putting on another show, he sees us. We’re in his sights. So we’re obviously a threat to him, so maybe he feels like he needs to attack me.

The last part was due to the fact that Dana White called Tom Atencio an “idiot who sells T-shirts for a living”. I think one thing is clear, Tom Atencio definitely handles himself better in the media and knows how to show respect to others where Dana White seems to lack this attribute at times.

As a fan, I think it would be great if Affliction and UFC could work together with events and fights. For those of you that don’t know, Dana White banned affliction clothing at UFC events. Some of you may have forgot though that Dana White himself wore Affliction Clothing before this as Tom Atencio pointed out.

[White] used to wear our clothes.

Tom also mentioned a possible Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko fight that would happen later this year. The details weren’t discussed but it looks like we will get to see what could be known as a matchup of the year between Couture and Emelianenko.

To hear the full interview, download Friday’s edition of TAGG Radio, available for free in the TAGG Radio archives.