There’s a narrative going around that by booking a free show opposite Affliction’s debut, Dana White did Affliction some kind of favor. The people making the argument say that the UFC opposition created more interest in the weekend than there would have been otherwise. I don’t buy this at all.
If Affliction was running unopposed this weekend, their ads might actually reach and have some effect on the millions of fans who watch UFC. Instead, those fans have been saturated with ads for Anderson Silva and a free show, and I haven’t spoken to one casual fan even considering buying Affliction over the UFC show. Whereas these fans may have considered buying a fight on Saturday night just because they like fights, they now have a free option, and the idea of buying Affliction and weighing cards against each other isn’t even a consideration.
Second, the narrative of competition is not a good one for Affliction. If they were running unopposed, all the hype would be on seeing Fedor fight again. Instead, three days out, the narrative is about the competition, and it’s a contest Affliction can’t win. People have pointed to the story on ESPN weighing the Affliction and UFC cards as proof that this has been a good thing for Affliction. Realistically, it probably did nothing to hurt or help, but certainly helped less than a major ESPN article on Fedor Emelianenko would have.
Instead of talking about all the great fighters fighting in Anaheim, most media outlets are focused on the competition aspect. If there was no competition, we would have spent the week reading only interviews and press from Fedor, Barnett, Lindland, and others. Instead I see much more stuff on Brandon Vera, Anderson Silva, James Irvin, and other incoming IFL stars, though that is partially because Affliction has failed to make fighters available for interviews.
There was a possibility that Affliction could gain national attention with ads and hype in the week leading up to the show if it was the only fight show happening on Saturday night. That possibility is no longer there thanks to UFC competition, so it’s hard to see how it has helped in any way.