Not bad, Dana!  And just think, we still have a few months to go!  It’s pretty easy to see that the feud will just continue to intensify until then.  What about the choice to counter-program, though?  Is it really smart for Affliction to do this?

At first thought, it would seem that Affliction is stupid to be messing with the UFC.  However, the UFC has already given Affliction similar treatment by airing past UFC’s for the first time on Spike TV during nights when Affliction was running a show.  So, what can the UFC really do to Affliction that they haven’t already done?  They’ve already banned their clothing and counter-programmed against their events, what else is left to threaten them with?

What really remains to be seen is whether this is a good choice for a company that is trying to build their fan base off mixed martial arts fans that watch the UFC regularly.  While it has been reported by Dave Carmichael that Affliction will be offering the show for free, complete with a “stacked” card that will feature Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett (though not against one another), is that enough to dissuade fans from ordering UFC 100, which will undoubtedly be one of the biggest nights in the company’s history.

Would it be smarter to offer the show for free, but a week before UFC 100, when fans will be hungry for some MMA fights and be willing to check out what Affliction has to offer?  If you’re going to offer the show to fans for free anyway, why not make sure you have the largest possible audience to give it to?

Sure, the UFC counter-programmed against Affliction, but it did so with events that had already aired on pay-per-view, which they had already cashed in on.  Also, it’s more likely that the UFC can hurt Affliction by taking fans’ eyeballs off of their show than the other way around.  Even if Affliction could hurt UFC 100’s buyrate significantly (which is a huge “if”), it would be a temporary setback and all of those fans would be back watching UFC 101.  Affliction doesn’t have the resources to run a show every time the UFC runs one, and they can’t afford to give away every one for free to try to hurt the UFC’s numbers.