Affliction Clothing – the company behind the Affliction branded t-shirts that are worn and feature specific designs relating to certain fighters including Randy Couture, Rampage, Sherk and GSP among others – will attempt its first foray into the UFC dominated land of North American Mixed Martial Arts promotion next month.

The shirts have been worn by top fighters over the last year or so, but since the announcement that Affliction is planning to promote its own fight card, companies such as the UFC and the Gary Shaw promotion Elite-XC have banned their fighters from wearingAffliction branded clothing on their broadcasts.

I suppose this makes sense, McDonalds wouldn’t want their employees wearing Burger King shirts and Coke employees would have some explaining to do if the chose to wear a Pepsi shirt to work.

The UFC is a modern by-word for the sport of MMA, some people even refer to it as Ultimate Fighting as oppose to the general term of Mixed-Martial Arts or even cage-fighting. UFC has always wanted to be the only one in the sport and bought out its nearest rival Pride FC last year.

Elite-XC has just gone live on the network channel CBS, so they obviously don’t want to in anyway promote their opposition on PPV.

Affliction has a number of problems to overcome in a short period of time if it wants its debut show to be anywhere near successful. First off they don’t have any sort of television presence, whether it is on network television or cable or even satellite.

They have no direct way of promoting this event to the casual MMA fan, who is exactly who they need to market to in order to get the amount of return they need to be considered a success. Almost all of the hardcore fans are aware of this event, but they need to finds a way to tap-in to the casual fan market.

Elite XC has done this through the promotion of Kimbo Slice. The UFC has done this over the years through brand recognition and the marketing and crossover appeal of stars such as Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Ken Shamrock and in a different way GSP. Affliction doesn’t have time to build up this recognition in time for their July 19 debut.

What do have and what they must be hoping will tap into the casual fan market is a plethora of big names of the MMA world and a stacked card.

The main event of this card entitled ‘Banned’, features the former two-time (or five time, depending how you count them) UFC heavyweight champion, Tim Sylvia.

Let me just say that I like Tim, he’s a talented fighter and arguably top 4 in the world at heavyweight just behind, Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, Randy Couture and Fedor. Tim has some big wins under his belt, including two wins over Andrei Arlovski, as well as wins over Jeff Monson, Ricco Rodriguez, Brandon Vera and ‘Cabbage’ Correira.

He has only been beaten by the best in his division, once by Arlovski, Couture, Nogueira and Frank Mir. Sylvia recently negotiated his release from the UFC, as they didn’t really have any fresh match-ups for him. Tim felt it was important for him to be fighting regularly and so has signed non-exclusive deals with Adrenaline MMA and Affliction.

The man he is facing off against is arguably the greatest heavyweight fighter the sport has ever seen. Fedor Emelianenko was the last pride heavyweight champion. He holds wins over a who’s who of the heavyweight fighters of the world, including Mirko Cro-Cop, Antonio Noguiera twice, Heath Herring, Semmy Schilt, and Mark Hunt.

Recently though, people have been complaining that Fedor hasn’t been fighting top competition regularly enough to justify being the number one in the world. In the year 2007 he fought twice, his first fight was for Bodog in St Petersburg, Russia against a man who is a natural middleweight Matt Lindland. Fedor beat him by arm bar in the first round.

His only other fight last year was on New Year’s Eve at the Japanese Yarrenoka event. Here, Fedor also scored a first- round arm-bar victory over 7ft 2 Korean K-1 fighter Hong-Man Choi. Prior to these two fights he had fought Zulu, Mark Hunt and an ageing Mark Coleman.

Sure, I understand he hasn’t fought top comp but all these guys he has fought he has destroyed with ease. Surely that counts for something? Well at least come July 19 he will fight a top 5 guy again, with potential fights against Barnett and Couture also available as options for him after Tim Sylvia.

Please don’t overlook Tim in this fight, there are many ways that Tim could give Fedor a whole load of problems in this fights. Tim has said that Fedor has never had this style of fight before.

That’s a little debatable, but still don’t be too shocked if Tim beats Fedor thereby potentially destroying the chances of Fedor fighting Couture and Barnett anytime soon.

Let’s get it straight, Sylvia didn’t walk away from the UFC to lose. Tim will bring his A-game t o the fight and if he loses, he will do so after giving Fedor a hell of a fight. I can’t wait for this fight and I’m surprised that other people are so negative about it.

The next confirmed bout that looks like it is being promoted as a co- main event is the fight that’s a rematch from years ago in the UFC, between Pedro ‘the rock Rizzo and Josh Barnett. Barnett was long inactive since the demise of pride.

But he has recently had a couple of fight for World Victory Road’s ‘Sengoku’ show in Japan. He beat veteran Japanese star Hidehiko Yoshida and then beat his former training partner, Jeff Monson. Rizzo also scored a win over Monson recently. But his best days seem to be behind him.

Barnett will be looking to gain a solid win and hopefully setup the much anticipated fight with Fedor in the near future. I’d go with Barnett to win this one, but again I wouldn’t be completely shocked to see Rizzo pick up a win via KO.

Ben Rothwell is a training partner of Tim Sylvia and is on the cusp of being a top ten heavyweight. He is a former IFL heavyweight champion; He has beaten Ricco Rodriguez and won a controversial decision over current IFL champ Roy Nelson.

Rothwell will face the biggest challenge of his career when he takes on former UFC Heavyweight champion Andrei ‘The Pitbull’ Arlovski. ‘The Pitbull’ is coming off two back to back wins in the UFC against Fabricio Werdum and Jake O’Brien. Arlovki’s contract with the UFC recently expired and he opted to sign for Affliction instead of resigning with the UFC.

In my opinion, this is going to be a great fight with Arlovski hoping to get back to his best, I expect an Arlovski knockout in the first round.

Other fights announced for the card are Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral taking on Mike Whitehead. Team Quests Matt Lindland takes on Fabio Negao. Other bouts that are supposed to happen include Aleksander Emelianenko taking on Paul ‘The Headhunter’ Buentello. ‘The Headhunter is coming off a devastating loss to Alistair Overeem.

Recently Affliction announced strong ticket sales, as well as the involvement of Donald Trump as a financial backer. Trump also dropped a hint that Tito Ortiz may sign for the promotion.

With the announcement of Trump as a partner, it makes it all more possible that Affliction could have a strong television presence due to Trump’s connection with NBC.

July 19 will be a historical date in the short history of MMA and every fan should be excited about what the future holds for this upstart promotion.

david.mackie@mmapreview.com