UFC Fight Night 14 won’t be the only free mixed martial arts action available for free on July 19.
The UFC struck a hard blow to Affliction MMA in the battle over who can get more viewers on July 19 when the promotion announced its surprise plans to air a free “Ultimate Fight Night” in almost two weeks that will feature perhaps the best pound for pound fighters in the world, Anderson Silva.
Affliction MMA, which is rolling the dice and possibly letting the entire future of its young organization ride on the success of its inaugural event, today reaffirmed that several fights would air on Fox Sports Net in the United States and on The Fight Network in Canada prior to the pay-per-view (PPV) telecast on July 19.
Clearly, the upstart promotion needs to pull in as many PPV buys as possible, and having Anderson Silva fighting for free on another organization’s event at the same time could be disastrous.
This will be the first time ever that an event will start its broadcast on a basic cable channel and move immediately to PPV. The hour-long basic cable portion of the event will begin at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT).
Here’s a quote from Executive Vice President of Programming and Production for FSN, George Greenburg, on the news:
“FSN has long been at the forefront of televised Mixed Martial Arts action. Our viewers are loyal, informed and passionate about the sport. This is a great opportunity to deliver a major MMA event to them featuring world-class fighters.”
As of right now, Affliction is guaranteeing two fights for FSN and The Fight Network.
In particular, the main event for the free broadcast will feature the U.S. debut of Aleksander Emelianenko (13-3) — the younger brother of the man who many believe to be the best pound for pound fighter in the world, Fedor Emelianenko. He will take on Paul Buentello (23-10) in what looks to be a good old fashioned, heavyweight slugfest. Prior to that, there will be a light heavyweight bout featured that pits Vitor Belfort (16-8) against the hard-hitting Terry Martin (16-4).
Not a bad couple of fights for free to lead into what looks to be a great PPV.
Time will tell if this will have any affect on the UFC’s ability to pull viewers away from purchasing Affliction’s show ($39.95), but it certainly adds more options for fans to an already full plate of mixed martial arts action on July 19.
Get those DVRs ready boys and girls.
35 Comments »
Waiting for Dana’s next move this is turning into a chess game for ratings. Competition makes better fights and promotions
Mania, didn’t you post this a couple weeks ago too?
This is starting to get fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone know if I can get fox sports network on cable provider: dish network?
yes. i had it through them before. but it might be different from state to state. mine is fox sports midwest.
I too had Fox Sports Network, FSN, when I had Dish Network. However, since I switched to Comcast, I have not had it. However, this Sunday I am getting ATT U-Verse which I know has HDnet and I believe it has FSN. The U-400 package includes the sports package so it would be hard to believe that they wouldn’t have the channel.
What time is UFN 14 starting? At 8 or 9?
ufn 14 starts at 9p.m. eastern and 8 p.m. central. pacific will have to figure it out themselves.
Thanks Bee-Dub!
They should change the name from an Ultimate Fight Night to UFC:Afflicted. This is going to be an awesome night.
UFN 14: We Have Competition.
i am in Indianapolis, IN and comcast cable does not offer it here. They said the farthest south they offer it is Chicago. I think FSN is out of Canada.
I’m interested to see if starting on tv will help pull the masses towards PPV. Or, if the masses will watch parts of those 2 fights in the commercials of FN14 and once it switches to PPV forget the event was happening. We’ll have to see
I love the battle between Affliction & the UFC. Its begining to benefit the fans, which is great for all of us. Free events & some great match ups. It will be interesting to see what Dana White counters back with.
Good move for Affliction. I think a lot of people are going to set back and see how this pans out. Affliction is backed by just more money to put in words. UFC is the big dog pissing on everything in sight. The competition gave us an UFN with one of the best UFC pound for pound fighters. No complaints here.
Fast food restaurants don’t try to find an area without other restaurants. They all open in the same place. Why? Because it brings more attention to the area as a place to go eat. The more restaurants, the more attractive power the area has.
Similarly, I think that the UFC and Affliction having major events on the same night just brings more attention to the evening as a time to watch MMA. I would not be surprised if both do well and if there is a record number of viewers. I know I will be recording them both on my DVR. It is a great time to get TIVO or DVR if you don’t already have it.
If the UFC wanted Affliction to do poorly, they would have been better off ignoring the event. The UFC is only bringing more attention to Affliction by creating this competition for viewers.
I think Affliction is not in it for MMA. I think there in it for there clothing and music groups that they have. I mean how could they put together the biggest card outside the UFC and not throw all the promoting out there that they can? Dana has been so successfull because he eats, sleeps, and sh!ts MMA. Tom Atencio said on InsideMMA that they were in the entertainment business first, meaning clothing and music groups. Titos punishment athletics wouldnt be where it is if it werent for the UFC. I think Affliction is using MMA for the same thing.
Both of those fights should kick some serious ass.
Does anyone know if there will be any sport bars that will be showing the affliction card such as hooters etc??
yesss
i always watch pride or ifl on fsn
now ill get to watch affliction
: )
Anderson on Free TV. Fighters moving weight classes. Matchups that were unthinkable a few years ago.
The competition from Affliction and the other orgs is doing just what Dana White said….its giving the fans what we want.
Gotta love competition.
This is the technology age. We can all have both!!! Watch one and tape the other. Tape them both. Watch them both at the same time. What ever your pleasure we can do it. Maybe if they were both pay per views, them I could see one taken a real hit because nobody wants to pay twice, but when one’s free, why not buy the other because basically you are getting 2 for the price of 1.
WAR FEDOR!!!!!!
WAR SILVA!!!!!!
ok I thought that Vitor was making his middleweight debut??
Awesome, looking forward to Alexs vs Paul and always am a fan of Vitor.
I hope Buentello kills him!
my dvr will be working double duty, but its up to the task, i trust it. ha!
Are they going to actually show fights, or will this just be an hour-long sales pitch?
“FSN has long been at the forefront of televised Mixed Martial Arts action. ”
really? huh, i didn’t know that.
I find it amusing that Affliction airs on FOX, weeks after FOX News lambastes the whole sport on O’Reilly.
they also aired pride highlight fights for years and still do sparingly. they were also the home of the ifl as well. o’rielly is a joke!
The fights that are going to be shown on Fox pale in comparison to the ones airing on Spike. Some competition is good. I still think that the Affliction PPV will not do that well. I thought so even before the UFC scheduled fights on Spike. The Affliction card is good for us seriously devoted fans, but IMHO it isn’t that marketable to the casual fan (which you need). I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Affliction’s one and only card.
The only way I see it doing well with people outside of us is due to their previous marketing. Think about every guy you have seen with an Affliction shirt they paid $60.00 for. Now those guys can watch a night of “no holds barred” action for twenty dollars cheaper then they bought that GSP or Couture shirt for.
I am all for the competition and The UFC is not the end all be all of MMA. What they are however, is the NFL of MMA. 90+%( actual number i just made up in my head) of all fighters dream of being in the UFC not Elite not Strikeforce nor any other organization at the time being. If I was Dana i would have done the exact same thing not because of fear of what Affliction may become(which is nothing over night)but over what they have become riding the UFC’s coat tails and using them for advertisement for the past however many years. Which directly gave them the capitol to do this in the first place.
dude not only do i gotta miss ufc 86,i gotta miss affliction that i wouldn’t buy anyways,and the ufn :/
now if someone has hdnet already is it a free card for them?
HUH???
and is that the same terry martin that james irvin KO’d with that bada$$ knee haha if it is vitor better murder him
I’m buying the PPV & I’ll tape the UFC.
I’m a huge fan of the UFC, but a bigger fan of MMA in general.
The competition is good for the sport, fans & fighters alike.
It forces Promotions to put on the very best shows to earn our money.
Support Affliction & any other Promotion that will put quality shows on for us and it can only result in better fighers & better shows.