Millionaire real estate developer, casino boss and reality television star, Donald Trump, is set to announce his foray into mixed martial arts this Thursday, June 5, at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, N.Y., at 12 p.m. ET.
According to a press release issued today, “The Donald” will partner with the start up Affliction MMA promotion, which is set to pull the trigger on its debut show at the at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., on July 19.
No particulars were revealed at this time.
Here’s a snip from Trump:
“I have been a fan of professional sports since childhood, and I am particularly impressed by the athleticism, courage, and strength of these disciplined athletes. This particular sport resembles my business style of being fast paced, strategic, and aggressive … remembering to never give up. I am particularly excited to partner with Affliction and become a major player in promotion of MMA; the youngest and fastest growing sport to emerge in the last century.”
Trump is the latest deep-pocketed businessmen, joining Mark Cuban and Calvin Ayre, to toss his hat into the MMA ring.
He has a relationship with former UFC light heavyweight champion, Tito Ortiz, who was a contestant on his most recent season of “The Apprentice.” In fact, Trump was in attendance at UFC 84: “Ill Will” to show his support for “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy.”
Trump also hosted the New York press conference to announce the “Banned” pay-per-view (PPV) event, saying that the card was “great.”
Stay tuned for more details on the partnership between Trump and Affliction.
Affliction “Banned” will feature a main event fight between between former UFC heavyweight champion, Tim Sylvia, and the last man to hold the Pride FC heavyweight strap, Fedor Emelianenko. Superstars such as Josh Barnett, Pedro Rizzo, Paul Buentello, Aleksander Emelianenko, Matt Lindland, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Ben Rothwell and Antonio Rogerio Nogueria, among others, will also be in action.
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I’m going to that event, so whatever makes it better is good with me.
I’m not a huge fan of The Donald, but with Dana and the fat douche from EliteXC by his side, he doesn’t look so bad all of a sudden.
I view “The Donald” as an equal to Shaw. Dana has a love for MMA (and he admits he’s bald); Trump has a love for other peoples money. He is the only person I know who inherited million from his Daddy, filled bankruptcy losing his investers millions, and is still known as a “great” business man. I’d say he’s cancer for the UFC.
*Cancer for MMA
Lol at knocking someone because they failed in the past. Have fun trying to be successful without failing on the way. Let me know how that works out for you.
‘Charles Westrill was a young, green, uninformed magazine writer when he invited T. J. Watson to a brown bag lunch—not knowing Watson was the president of IBM. Surprisingly, Watson accepted, but suggested dining at IBM headquarters. Once Charles got over the shock of his lunch date’s prominence, Watson gave him some life-changing advice.
“Would you like the formula for success?” Watson asked. “Double your rate of failure.”‘
Off topic but nice post, nonetheless.
Yes he did go bankrupt but lets not forget he went from bankrupt to Multi-millionaire again which is extremly impressive. You have to be a “great business man to accomplish that feat. I all of a sudden feel so wrong defending Donald I can’t stand him either.LOL
More important is that Donald Trump has very deep pockets enough to put card after card with great fighters and take care of them all.
Yeah exactly, that’s some really great news for fans and fighters alike.
I think it’s great news for the sport. It’s exactly opposite of what I thought would happen but there you go…
and people were worried about were affliction would get all their money…. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!
john, will Affliction just be a promotion among various fighters? Or will they have championships and contracts like the UFC/WEC/Elite etc.?
ChefDaddy: I am not sure… If I had to guess, I would say that it will be a real organization, not opposed to collaborating with other organizations. I think we will see title’s awarded. However, I doubt they will have exclusive contracts. I am pretty sure that they wont.
how so? I’ve read that the Donald isn’t even close to as rich as he thinks he is or portrays! He has his name on a lot of buildings that he doesn’t own, just for name recognition. He is a great business man, so don’t think he’s going to go out there and save a sinking ship!
Lets just say Donald Trump is only half as rich as he say’s he is???
He is still pretty damn rich!
probably more rich then Gary Shaw(who is still pretty rich).
Donald Trump is the 278th richest person in the world, with a net worth of 2.6 billion….
Trump + Affliction = money problem solved.
U r right Kev….Trump was in the food stamp line…GIVE ME A BREAK!!! the guy is Filthhy Ritch!
Dana vs Donald???
I’ve heard rumors that Andrea Arlovski is fighting in this event. On the last episode of that ESPN show they had him on the card. Mania, can you confirm?
http://www.afflictionclothing.com/banned/
Still no opponent for Rothwell, but nothing has been confirmed as far as Arlovski.
Is Vitor on this card
I think this means Tito will join affliction as well
I’d say that it has a 99% chance of happening now.
Wow, the cash was the last element needed to make this promotion into a serious competition to the UFC.
Great news for the fans, as this means that promotions and fighters will need to step their game up if they want to survive.
Aside from this good first card, all they will be is another shit Org. The Affliction guy said that there would be a mini concert and that they where in the entertainment business too. I dont see this Org. doing any better than EliteXC, (like I said aside from this first card)
I beg to differ. Trump more than likely will have savvy marketing folks on his payroll, that will look into the industry and what is best for it. Nobody can say for sure, but I would be surprised if any different.
Trump’s declarations sound like someone who “gets it” about MMA, not someone who’s just looking into it as a hot money maker.
Wrong not great news for the fans. Dont you see it with all these money grubbing millionaires coming into play MMA will turn into boxing within 5 years. Full of fake champions who dont take risks. At least Dana White loves MMA without a doubt you can see in face and the way he speaks.
Not everything Trump touches turns to gold.
Trump and MMA seems like a bad idea all around. He will inject all the bad elements in boxing into MMA.
If he didn’t have a relationship with Tito I would agree with you DubNub but he is who he is for a reason. He is smart and learns the product. If he truly wants it to be successful like UFC he will see that Dana has a true passion for mma and that is why UFC is who they are. Trump will have respect for it unlike Shaw. Trump vs Dana will be a major league war not a bush league war with Kimbo leading the army.
This is way too many promotions, this will simply water down all the leagues. The UFC has the name, fighters, reputation and most importantly the Fertittas.
UFC has the blue print for success, all the other followers will simply fade away!
Im not sure affliction will fade away. They seem like a very good upstart promotion.
with Donald backing up this event (and possibly other Affliction events) or even his own promotion…. they could possibly have the edge to broadcast on NBC on a regular basis due to “The Donald’s” clout with the network.
Very good point.
I wonder what Affliction does after this card? Not to many big names out there to make another crazy card like this first one.
What is with all the negative bullshit? They’ve put together a fantastic first card, added a backer with a lot of cash and business connections, and yet some people just want to assume the worst. If you have that much loyalty to the UFC, just strap on the blinders and ignore every other promotion.
LOL! Excellent point.
Yeah but i just see these guys trying to get a peice of the pie while its hot. I dont see them lobbying to get MMA sanctioned in every state and expand it around the world. the UFC and Dana have done all the work these a**holes dont love the purity of the sport all we are gonna see a shitload of fixed fights.
I love this stuff. Some of the big guns coming out to take on the UFC .. they would see it as a personal challenge to tip it. Someone like Trump has the infrastructure in place … should get very interesting.
Also, HOW GOOD IS THAT CARD .. F**KING AWESOME! I can not wait.
P.S Tito next Afflication partner and …
Tito vs Belfort to headline next event.
DANA WHITE VS DONALD TRUMP, in a VERBAL BLOOD BATH… “AWESOME”
Common guys how has it taken this long before someone mentions Ivanka as a ring girl
I think its more likely that Tito and Donald team up to create their own org. Tito and him have become friends through the apprentice (Hell, Trump even thought Tito won the Machida fight, promote subliminaly??) And Tito wants to start an org so i think they will team up to give it a shot. Where would they get the fighters from , thats the Q?
Trump has no reason to give Tito a piece of Affliction…
He may hire Tito… Maybe let Tito be a commentator, or take the role as being the “Dana White”-like public relations guy.
I think Trump is a smart business man. He will use Tito for his strengths (which is fighting and promoting fights)… But he won’t give Tito a noteworthy chunk of the business. It just wouldn’t make business sense to do that. Tito doesn’t have the pockets…
word..ivanka vs gina…..honey fight
The more competition for the UFC the better.
All the fans wanna see more quality fights and there is definately room for organisations that are going to put on fights that the UFC cant or wont put on i.e. Fedor vs Tim.
Make way for Affliction and with the soon to be combover king of MMA (trump lol) it should stand up for a lot longer.
Dont complain until there is something to complain about I say.
Everyone deserves a chance and until Affliction start to make mistakes and with more cards like this I will be backing them all the way!!
..Well said Mr.Trump
I think this will work out. The Second card is already set up, which will be Randy Vs Fedor. They could have an undercard featuring Tito, Tim etc and have a second great event. In the space of two events other big names will emerge.
I love all you rthat say that Trump has a passion for MMA. He has been to ONE EVENT. Is he at every UFC. No. The money whore that he is, he is trying to score some cash. He sees green and thats it. And don’t think that the guy is going to throw money at every fighter just because. The man is not a billionaire because he spends a ton of money. Who from his family is going to f this whole thing up? He may get Ivanka in on this venture. And Randy vs. Fedor means shee at if Fedor loses to Tim. Then where do they go? Fedor will be exposed, and Trump will bail by the 4th event.
this is so true. i like the donald personally, but how much do people think he will be willing to lose. every upstart org starts by losing tens of millions(including the ufc). i guess the donald can afford it, but so can cuban and look how quick he jumped ship w/affliction by not letting them use his arena and not showing the main card on hd-net. cuban probably got his first taste of what really goes down in the world of mma and he didnt like it. if you read newer interviews w/ cuban he sounds alot different and more respectful towards dana white and mma altogether. maybee the combo of trump and affliction will be the one to compete with the ufc, but they need to partner up with adreneline permanantly cuz i like mont cox alot. he’s a real mma guy, not like shaw.
What I love is how you assert that so many people are saying that Trump has a passion for MMA, when in fact, nobody on this thread has said anything close to that. Does he see a potential to make money? Absolutely. He also has professional skills and connections that Dana will never have. So yeah, go ahead and assume the worst like everyone else with blind loyalty to the UFC.
GO DONALD make the bitch a$$ dana lose it and crumble the ufc into nothing. I would love to see every under paid fighter roll over on dana so the f brothers will can his ass dana is not right fo the mma sport. I cant even let my children watch mma with me cause of his filthy mouth DANA just needs to go,Donald welcome aboard and im sure tito will come with you cause everyone like tito he is the main attraction when it comes to fights he always draws a crowd…i love it baby!!!
“Everyone like Tito” Huh?? Yeah, he draws a crowd, but more than half of them are rooting for him to get his oversized noggin caved in
you cant let your children watch mma because of danas dirty mouth? he wasnt a part of elite xc sat night, did you let them watch that? depending on how old they are, maybeee you shouldnt let them watch mma period. dana is only on tuf on spike alot and they dont allow curse words. other than that most of his cursing comes from interview and press confrences, what does that have to do with all of mma.
someone should correct the millionaire part to BILLIONAIRE part.. trump is worth 2.7 to 3 bill
Says Trump.
This is the same thing that happened in the 90s to professional wrestling. Dana is like Vince McMahon and Trump is like Ted Turner. Turner bought WCW and paid a lot of WWF/WWE’s wrestlers a lot of money to come to his promotion. Well for those who are not familiar with the story. WCW shot ahead of WWF/WWE in popularity for a short time but then due to the lack of knowledge in the wrestling business and paying the fighters more than they’re worth Turner had to sell the WCW to McMahon. Weather you like him or hate him Dana started MMA as we know it today. (that’s not an opinion it’s a fact) So all the people who hope affliction puts Dana out of the business, you might just be wishing for the downfall of MMA. Do you think there is a reason the UFC doesn’t look like a spectacle, it’s because Dana has a vision that is working. You can have all the top talent and pay them a lot of money but if the production looks like pro wrestling it’s not going to survive. Then Dana’s out of business and so is affliction. That wouldn’t be good for MMA. People really need to stop and look at the situation, look at what Dana has done for the sport. I’ve been watching MMA since it started and have seen the evolution of the sport. Look at pre Dana UFC compared to post Dana UFC. Then tell me he’s bad for the sport. I don’t want my kids watching certain stuff with Dana either but the only thing he’s really on is the ultimate fighter and kids shouldn’t be watching that anyway. Thats a reality show that helps the sport, not part of the sport. So if you just watch the events with him/her you should be able to control what they see.
I’m just happy that this means that there will be more high level MMA events in the East Coast.
uh-oh looks like Dana’s nemesis.
dana white thought he had some backers with money in the fertitta brothers, lol, they ain’t got shit on donald trump’s wealth!!! affliction could be a major player with trump backing their efforts
In major thing we are also missing is not only the money but the network that comes with somebody like him could you imagine how many people he knows that he could pull strings to get things done, network deals and finding venues. I myself believe the UFC has the best roster of fighters but there is no way that if you add up the pull that Dana and the Fertittas have, they dont equal to what Donald Trump could get done for him just because of who he knows and who he is.
I was just wondering what Affliction T the Donald would sport at the fight and I had the greatest idea… Affiction should have a line of ties. Yes, neck ties for the Harley riding, MMA watching business man type.
You saw it here first.
Anyone backing Affliction with deep pockets is good for MMA fans. This card is truly stacked. I am skipping Bedlam and putting my dollars to this event.
Who cares about Donald Trump vs. Dana White, or UFC vs. any other fight league?
I’m just super excited to see a Fedor fight. Along with all the other names on that card, this is going to be a great event. All I care about is watching great fights and great fighters.