Affliction Hits Bump in the Road

After what many called a successful first show, it seems that Affliction may have hit their first obstacle. Affliction paid a huge amount of money to their fighters for their first show. If the reported numbers are correct, Affliction paid out a whopping $3.3 million to their fighters.

Tim Sylvia made $800,000 for just thirty-six seconds of work. Obviously, something needs to change for Affliction to survive in the competitive world of fight promotion.

It is now being reported that Affliction is asking its fighters to take a pay cut for the sophomore show. Some reports are that the pay-cut could be up to 50 percent.

But don't worry, in exchange, Affliction will make sure you get an easy opponent. That's right. They won't pay you what you're worth, but at least you can destroy a can in the process.

In response, Josh Barnett has already stated he will not take a pay cut to fight in the next Affliction show. Barnett made $300,000, with no win bonus for his KO of Pedro Rizzo. My guess is that we have seen the last of Barnett in Affliction. He is going back to Japan.

To make matters even worse, The Tomas and Mack center's Affliction page has taken Fedor's name off, and now Arlovski's opponent is TBD. That's not good, not good at all for Mr. Tom Atencio.

Fedor and his management have been accused of holding promotions hostage in the past. They ask for more money or fights for fellow Red Devil team members. I highly doubt Fedor is going to take less money than the reported $300,000, plus PPV cut, especially if he is going to be fighting Arlovski.

The old cliché  is that you can tell a lot about a person or company by how they handle adversity. This will be one of the first opportunities for Affliction to show us what they are really made of.

To be successful, Affliction has to handle their monetary and fighter issues. All we can do now is wait and see what Affliction has up its sleeves.