MMA: Is Tom Atencio Responsible for Dana White's New Kindness?

What an apparently exhilarated man Tom Atencio, the vice president of Affliction, is.

Affliction "Banned" sold more seats in the Honda Center than the last UFC in th same venue did, in spite of there being fewer seats due to the stage on which Megadeath performed. 

But Atencio is not bragging about this.

Atencio is not certain what the Pay Per Views brought in yet, although 80,000 buys would be considered a good amount.  If it were to end up more in the range of 250,000 everyone in the organization would look as happy as he appears in the photo above. 

Still, he may never choose to brag about that either.

What Tom Atencio, or "the T-shirt guy" as Dana White has called him, did was to lavish praise on White and the UFC for bringing the sport of MMA to the place of prominence it holds in the sports world today, and thus assuring that the Affliction program had the large enthusiastic audience it enjoyed the past Saturday night in Anaheim, California. 

He was not gloating when he made this statement either—just stating a fact.

What a unique strategy, to honor the man who tried to single handedly upstage the fledgling Affliction organization by holding a free UFC show on the same night and at the same time.

Such was the night that White even ended up complementing his previous foe Fedor Emilianenko for being able to defeat former two-time UFC Heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in 36 seconds—thus admitting that Emilianenko was not at all overrated and is rather a force to be reckoned with in MMA.

Atencio also said how by treating the fighters better they will perform better for  the organization. 

Again, he was being enthused over the success of his show and not throwing stones at the UFC, although he could have as this is how many ex-UFC fighters ended up on the Saturday night card for the "Banned" event.

Maybe this is a good way to extend an olive branch to the rival organization in hopes of being able to offer a fight between stars in both companies in the future, which is something that could have prevented the competition in the first place.

All I know is that both men are apparently satisfied with their respective fight productions, and both are smiling at post fight press interviews, being generous to a fault—unlike the tense, hostile days leading up to the events.

That is a good reason for all MMA fans to smile and have hope for the future.