If Affliction ends up on CBS, they will be more of a threat to the UFC.
Rumors persist of Affliction taking the place of EliteXC on CBS Saturday Night Fights. If this does happen, the UFC could have a much tougher opponent on their hands than EliteXC ever could have been. EliteXC was never a threat to the UFC. They didn't have enough talented fighters and chose the build their promotion on the Kimbo hype machine versus substance. They also spent way to much money buying up smaller promotions, which in hindsight was a really bad idea.
Affliction on the other hand has some very talented fighters. If you look at it, they actually have more talented Heavyweights than the UFC does right now. This includes several former UFC Champions. They also have Fedor Emelianenko, who is considered by most people outside of the UFC to be the best pound for pound MMA fighter in the world. Affliction also made a run at Randy Couture, but the UFC lawyers made sure that it did not happen. This kept all of us from seeing the dream match up of Randy Couture vs Fedor Emelianenko.
I hope the Affliction/CBS deal does happen. I am a complete sucker for free MMA. I watched all the EliteXC's, even though I talk about how crappy the broadcast were. Most of the fights were okay, a few were actually really good, and did I mention free. I still remember how disappointed I was with Tim Sylvia vs Andrei Arvovski 3. What made it really bad was that I had to pay 40 dollars and almost fell asleep. I wonder if Affliction will put their best fighters on CBS, or try to save them for PPV's.
