Affliction "Trilogy" Cancelled: Is This The Beginning Of The End?

With Josh Barnett's positive steroid test cancelling the main event between him and Fedor, the company cancelled the card, according to SI.com

This will likely cost the company, started by the popular MMA clothing brand, millions of dollars, and could effectively cripple the company financially. This could end the company and effectively give the UFC a monopoly on the MMA game.

But is this the end of Affliction? I say yes.

This was likely Fedor's last fight with the company, and while he may have to wait to fight again he may be able to just jump ship now. And after this fiasco I think he is done with Affliction and will sign with the UFC.

This takes away Afflictions biggest, and only superstar fighter and takes away their ability to have a headline fight that is must see. Without that Afflictions extravagant cards will lose even more money as less fands will attend or buy the event on pay per view.

They still have some good fighters and some names, Tito Ortiz is one, but these guys lack the juice to get the fans convinced that this is serious competition to the UFC.

So if Affliction folds what does that mean for the rest of the MMA world?

While Strikeforce will be the de facto number two company in North America and they have some great fighters and an exciting product, maybe they can be the company that steps up to the plate with Affliction and Elite XC failing at maintaining a foothold as UFC's main opponent.

And the UFC will obviously gain from all the fighters with Affliction becoming free agents. Especially in the heavyweight divisions which is by far the UFC's weakest.

They obviously get Fedor but Little Nog also could be signed and he is an up and coming fighter who could be the next great heavyweight fighter and someone I could see unseating Lesnar in the future.

The UFC would love to get their hands on as much Affliction guy as possible as it would definitely bolster their already stacked roster of fighters as well as eliminate their main competition.

Affliction may still have the fight to stay in the game, and I am sure they have the checkbook to, but the question is how long will they last without Fedor and when are they going to fold? Only time will tell, I certainly will be watching and reporting the events of this interesting story.