Affliction vs. UFC
posted by Ariel Helwani
When Affliction first announced that they were going to try to compete with the UFC by promoting their own MMA shows, the face of their new organization, Tom Atencio, made sure to never pick a fight with Dana White. What a novel concept.
When the media tried to coax Atencio into talking smack about White, he always chose his words carefully and was very respectful. Clearly, trying to pick a fight with White had not been a successful tactic for other MMA promotions, and it seemed as though Atencio had made a conscious decision not to go down that same path.
A year later, I’m scratching my head as I wonder what in the name of Art Jimmerson has gotten into Atencio. All of a sudden he’s decided that not only would it be a good idea to talk a boatload of trash about White, but that it would be an even better idea to actually challenge the UFC president to an MMA match. Seriously.
‘I’d love to fight Dana,†said Atencio to Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole (check the full piece here). I’m not a former world champion with a huge record like Tito (Ortiz). I’m a guy who is on par with him. I like to fight and he says he does, so I’d love to fight him.â€
Ugh. Does Atencio really think that White is going to waste his time fighting him? I have a hard time believing he is that delusional. This is just a tactic to steal some headlines, right? Right?!
Regardless, White , surprise! , isn’t taking the bait.
“If I were him, I’d want to fight me, too,” White told Iole in his response. “I’m the guy who is killing all of his hopes and dreams… At the end of the day, I stepped up and said I would fight Tito and he was a fighter who people cared about. But why would I fight this goof? He’s neither a fighter nor a promoter. He’s a [expletive] loser. That’s all he is.â€
“Let me tell you something: When I was $44 million in the hole, the last thing I was doing was leaving the office and going out to train for a joke of a fight. I was in the office and trying to find a way to make this thing work. Why would I waste one second of my second of my day worrying about this [expletive] guy? He should be worried about the millions and millions of his bosses, or his partners’ money, whoever it is, that’s he’s burning. That’s a complete joke.”
White is referring to the fact that the 42-year-old Atencio has agreed to fight on an upcoming pay-per-view card against a fighter named Randy Hedderick next month. Shockingly, this fight won’t be on an Affliction pay-per-view, but rather on some random card headlined by Bob Sapp vs. Bobby Lashley in Mississippi. Atencio is actually 1-0 in his professional MMA career, picking up decision victory in 1995. Still, his timing is questionable.
It’s no secret that Affliction lost tons of money on their first two high-profile shows. The lineups were great, no doubt, but approximately 100,000 pay-per-view buys per show (so they claim) minus three million dollars in fighter purses per show equals lots of red ink. But instead of trying to figure out how to turn the organization’s misfortunes around for its upcoming third show (rumored to be in July or August), Atencio has decided that he would be better served a) training for a fight on a non-Affliction card, and b) calling out Dana White for a fight. Brilliant.
Of course, long-time pro wrestling fans are very familiar with this scene. Eleven years ago, Eric Bischoff challenged Vince McMahon on WCW Monday Nitro to a fight. That seemed like a bad idea then just like this seems like a bad idea now.
No one was sure whether Bischoff really wanted to fight McMahon or not, but one thing we all agreed on was that his challenge was stupid and a waste of everyone’s time. Forget the fact that McMahon, who at one time trailed Bischoff in the ratings game, would gain nothing by appearing on Bischoff’s show and actually fighting him, but the idea of two old non-athletes competing against each other in some kind of bizarre match was as appealing as a colonoscopy. Of course, McMahon never showed up for the fight, much like White will never agree to fight Atencio. And while Bischoff was busy challenging McMahon to bogus fights and obsessing over his competition’s product, McMahon was simply kicking his ass in the ratings.
There’s a lesson to be learned from this wrestling tale, Tom: Mind your own business and stop worrying about Dana White and the UFC. The UFC isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, while Affliction may be nearing it’s expiration date. Affliction has an enormous amount of potential and Atencio is a very savvy businessman. He wouldn’t have gotten this far if that wasn’t the case. But I question his focus when he’s resorting to taking fights and making challenges at this stage of the game.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:43 am
i dont know what affliction is doing.
but id like to compare eric bischoff to dana white.
eric bischoff was the best thing that ever happened to wcw and was also the worst.
i think dana white has done great things for the UFC but if he took a step back away from the cameras it would be even greater.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:09 am
i havent seriously sat down and watched wrestling for more than 5 minutes in years….but i was very into it as a youngster….my father used to take me to the providence civic center everytime they were in town when i was a youth in the late 80′s early 90′s….big fan of razor ramon and mr perfect…lol…i still remember seeing hogan main eventing against the likes of kamala and killer khan…and going to the king of the rings before they were ppv events….ahhh the memories
anyway…”but the idea of two old non-athletes competing against each other in some kind of bizarre match was as appealing as a colonoscopy”…i have to disagree…i enjoy these type of matchups…kind of like when skateboarder simon woodstock took on fredro starr from onyx in a boxing match on mtv years ago…im intrigued by non athletes, with no history of fighting experience, fighting each other….kind of like danny bonaduce when he kicked the crap outta greg brady(or was it screech or todd bridges i cant remember)…until they figured out that bonaduce was like a black belt with a kick boxing history and abusing roids
May 15th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
sidebar
mr. perfect saved wade boggs life once.
Prior to “Mr. Perfect†Curt Hennig’s entrance into WWE, a series of videos were seen on WWE television proving that he was the “perfect athlete.†One of the videos featured Mr. Perfect taking batting practice, hitting nothing but home runs every time. Wade Boggs, then the third baseman for the Boston Red Sox and one of the greatest hitters in Major League Baseball history, was seen at his side marveling at just how perfect Hennig was. “I met Curt in 1983 in Rochester, N.Y., and we became good friends, hunting and fishing buddies,†Boggs told WWE.com. “In fact, he once saved my life while were were hunting in 2001; I got entangled into a barbed wire fence and was cut pretty badly. It took all the strength Curt had to free me and carry me about a mile back to the truck. He saved my life and has a special place in my heart; we spent as much time as we could together, and it’s a shame he was taken from us so early.â€
Boggs, who won five American League Batting crowns (including an impressive four in a row from 1985-88) and collected 3,010 hits in his career, was certainly no stranger to great hitting. He’s also no stranger to the Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2005 to baseball’s Hall in his first year of eligibility; he’s also a member of the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame as well. So, it’s no surprise that the “perfect hitter†will induct Mr. Perfect into WWE’s Hall on March 31. “It’s special for me to induct Curt,†Boggs beamed. “I know the weekend I had in Cooperstown (when Boggs was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame), and I wish he was around to see his induction. He was so passionate towards sports-entertainment and was a tremendous showman. It’s so fitting.â€
fast foward to 11:45
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6q1e6_the-life-and-times-of-mr-perfect-20_sport
May 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
kevin…funny you should mention that…because im a lifelong sox fan…and was a fan of boggs until he donned the stripes…still have this clock that has a big framed pic of boggs and clemens standing side by side that says “red sox repeaters”…listing boggs batting titles and clemens cy young awards
and i remember those videos…one had him diving…another bowling…there was even one of him inside the vikings practice facility with vikings TE steve jordan(brown alum) where mr perfect would toss up a bomb and run and catch it himself….lolol…and to be honest…i have most of these videos saved on my computer(pretty pathetic i know)…even the tribute video they did for him after he died….i loved when he would toss a pencil up in the air and catch it when he was doing announcing…or slap the piece of gum he would spit out…lol
May 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I’m so glad this doesn’t happen in boxing – though I have heard Lou DiBella say he would fight Steve Kim, writer for maxboxing.com. Lou hates him for the whole B-Hop slander case that started with a Kim article.
I couldn’t imagine Bob Arum and Don King with gloves on. I know that Don killed someone with his bare hands back in the day but I think they’d both die of heart attacks by the end of round one. Richard Shaefer with gloves on is a joke as well.
Ricky – I miss the celebrity boxing as well. Bonaduce kicked Greg Brady’s ass. The ref let it go on about two knockdowns too long. It was brutal (not as brutal as Tanya Harding gettin’ gangsta on Paula Jones – but close). What’s funny is a few years earlier, Donny Osmond and Bonaduce fought and it was actually a pretty entertaining and close scrap. Donny is no joke – much tougher than Brady. Bonaduce won a close decision. Unfortunately, it’s not on Youtube that I could see.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I may change my mind on Atencio vs. White if we can get Kim vs. DiBella on the undercard. That would be so bad, it would have to be good.
Kurt, I’m curious, does this kind of talk cheapen MMA in your eyes, or can separate this kind of hype and desperation from the actual beauty of the sport?
May 15th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
of course it cheapens mmma.
this type of shenanigans is on par with the whole jose canseco debacle coming up, on HDnet if anyone is interested.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
wait… kevin… mr. perfect is dead? that’s news to me.
*spits gum out and swats it into the crowd*
May 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Ariel – it does make both Atencio and White look ridiculous. It definitely makes MMA look more like the WWE. But having said that, it’s hard for either of these guys to keep their egos in check.
Dana especially is really starting to come off as a wind-bag egomaniac. Going off on that internet writer and now this – just makes him look like he wants to be bigger than his organization. I can definitely see him getting canned by the UFC (or resigning) and starting his own org within the next few years. I’m sure he’s getting to be almost as grating to the Fertittas as Gary and Jared Shaw were to Elite XC.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Oh yeah – Ariel – I never mix the sport and the windbags who promote it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stomach boxing at all – one DK press conference would be enough to kill anyone’s interest if they factored it into their passion for the actual sport. MMA is a sport I have followed and admired and I will continue to do so – despite Dana’s machinations and Attencio’s desperate cries for attention.
November 2nd, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Good Morning, I just stopped by to visit your blog and thought I’d say thanks for having me.