Affliction’s plans for a successful debut PPV event were tarnished this month when the UFC announced that they would be airing UFC Fight Night 14 on the same night as Affliction "Banned".

While Affliction is coming out strong with a recipe for success that consist of top ten ranked heavyweights, the Russian Emperor, and Megadeth, there is no doubt that the UFC’s July 19th event will take it’s toll on the companies PPV sales.

The message boards are already crawling with fans that say that will not purchase the event but will instead watch the UFC’s free event on Spike TV.

While Dana White would never admit that he scheduled the event on the same day on purpose, it is quite obvious that he was looking to send a message to his competitor in the form of a giant FU. The two organizations have formed a rivalry of sorts that goes back to UFC 79 when the UFC’s fighters were banned from wearing Affliction clothing.

Headlining UFC Fight Night 14 is Anderson "The Spider" Silva who will make his light heavyweight debut against James "The Sandman" Irvin. Affliction "Banned" features a main event that will decide the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the world in a match between number one ranked Fedor Emelianenko and former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia.

With a total of five top ten ranked heavyweights on the card, you would think the choice for many would be simple. That is not the case however. It seems the UFC’s branding power has a hex over it’s fans who are loyal to say the least. There seems to be two types of fans in mixed martial arts at this point in time, MMA fans and UFC fans. It’s unfortunate but I truly believe this is the case.

Sherdog.com did a poll asking it’s readers which event they would watch on July 19th. Twenty five percent said that they would watch UFC Fight Night 14 instead of Affliction "Banned". It is also clearly evident in the forums that a good percentage of people will not pay Affliction’s $39.95 price tag to watch the event. In fact some posters have even posted topics warning others not to pay for the event.

Here are some of the reasons that people will watch the UFC instead of Affliction:

"The headliner is great, but otherwise I have never been that pumped about this card. I don’t really care about the heavyweight division, can’t stand Lindland, and a lot of the other fighters are past their prime. Now that UFC has a decent free event on I’m gonna save myself some loot and just watch that. I’ll check the PBP on here for Affliction."

"I was going to buy just to support them, but it is in a friggen ring, so no, I will not be giving any MMA org money, who is dumb enough to use a ring. I hope they fail."

"The UFC is basically the NFL of mma and I would much rather watch the Dolphins play the Browns than any arena league game and this affliction card is like watching the 49ers play the Rhine Fire."

"I too will no longer be purchasing the affliction show. The card has a lot of big and recognizable names, but the actual matchups don’t interest me that much. Tim Sylvia’s fights are often boring. AA hasn’t looked like the AA of old since getting ko’d by Tim. Lindland’s style is often boring. Barnett’s too. I would’ve gotten the card to watch Fedor fight against a decent opponent, but now that Anderson Silva, Vera, Franca, Edgar etc. are fighting on a free card…I think I’ll just save my money instead."

"The only fighters worth watching on the Affliction card are Fedor and Arlovski….I don’t understand why everyone thinks this card is so great. Id rather watch Anderson any day."

"I’ll watch the free prelim card for sure on FSN, but once its time for UFN… Spike channel it is. I mean I’m sure the Affliction PPV will end up on the net anyway. In all honesty, the economy is rough and gas prices are high. $40 for a PPV = gas money/groceries."

"I will watch the free UFC fight, then find free videos of Affliction fights."

The most common reason for people deciding to watch the UFC over Affliction was the fact that Anderson Silva is on the card. Another common reason was that many believe a lot of the heavyweights on the Affliction card are past their prime. Some also stated that a lot of the fights were mismatches.

A very common solution to the problem of deciding what to watch was to DVR the UFC event and watch the Affliction event live on PPV.

So what will you do and explain why?

After tons of speculation and a long line of rumors including the sale of the company itself to a German based international entertainment company, the UFC finally unveiled their "Big Announcement" this afternoon to employees of the billion dollar company.

So what is the huge announcement that fans have been clamoring to know for the past week now? Lorenzo Fertitta has left his job as president of Station Casinos to come work full time with the UFC.

While this is positive news for the future growth of the UFC, it is surely a major bummer for fans who were expecting something a little more exciting to say the least.

Lorenzo Fertitta along with president Dana White made made the "big announcement" today to their employees at Palace Station, a property of Station Casinos.

Lorenzo talked about his career change and the fact that is wasn’t a indictment of the UFC president and long time friend of Fertitta, Dana White.

"The problem, if there is a problem, is that the business has gotten so successful, it’s requiring more time, focus and attention," Fertitta said. "Station Casinos is a business my family and I have built and now it’s a multi-billion dollar company. But the reality is, the UFC has gone through so much growth in the last eight years, my brother and I felt we’d be better in divide and conquer mode. He’ll stay at Station Casinos and take care of that and I’ll come over here and work on the issues involving the UFC."

White also scoffed at the idea that some might see Fertitta’s move as a sign that the company is in trouble.

"If they think that, beautiful, because it’s better for us," White said. "There just isn’t enough time in the day for me to do everything that needs to be done. Lorenzo’s wife said to me the other day, ‘The two of you together is scary.’ I think what we’re going to be able to do now is amazing.

"I think the potential for the UFC within the next five years globally is that it is going to be bigger than the NFL, bigger than Major League Baseball. As huge as the NFL is here, they don’t give a (expletive) about the NFL in Europe. But fighting transcends continents. Everybody on every continent understands a fight."

According to Fertitta, the UFC has plans to expand beyond the US and UK in the near future. He talked about expanding into countries such as Italy, France, Spain, Russia, Dubai, China, South Korea, Japan and India. Lorenzo also talked about adding more big name sponsors to the list which already includes Bud Light and Harley Davidson.

For the full story read Kevin Iole’s article at Yahoo Sports.

As if UFC fans weren’t rowdy enough, Bud Light has entered the scene as the exclusive beer sponsor of the UFC.

Zuffa, LLC and Anheuser Busch announced the three year deal today which will kick off at UFC 84 "Ill Will" at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV. Bud Light’s logo will appear in the center of the octagon as well as on the vertical bumpers.

Bud Light will remain front and center for all ten of the UFC’s annual PPV and will also be featured during the UFC weigh ins and press conferences. In addition they will be the presenting sponsor at two of the PPV events each year and the official beer sponsor of the four or more UFC Fight Nights.

“Landing Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light is huge for us, our fighters and especially our fans,” said Dana White, UFC president. “We’ve got the number one selling beer in the world and one of the top marketers in all of sports as our sponsor. If our TV ratings, pay-per-view buys and venue sell-outs weren’t enough, this definitely cements UFC as a major player in sports business.”

In addition to the UFC, Bud Light will also be sponsoring the WEC (World Extreme CageFighting). The WEC is owned by Zuffa, LLC, and is the second largest MMA organization in the world. Bud Light will make it’s sponsor debut with the WEC on June 1.

For more details and the full press release visit UFC.com.

The UFC announced that Yahoo! Sports is going to be their new online distributor for the UFC’s live PPV events.

UFC 82 Pride of a Champion will be the first UFC presented live on the internet, via Yahoo! Sports.

The event takes place on March 1 and will be available for the same price ($44.95) as on PPV TV.

Viewers that purchase the event online will have access to the same exact feed that cable and satellite users receive when purchasing the PPV event on TV. Once the online feed is purchased viewers will have access to the feed for a full 24 hours which in most cases is more time than you get on TV. Unfortunately users in Italy, Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan will not have access to the online PPV event.

Mixed martial arts continues to grow and this new partnership represents another step forward in the globalization of MMA and more specifically the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Dana White commented on the new partnership with Yahoo! Sports.

“This relationship with Yahoo! is an important step for the UFC to build its global distribution platform for live pay-per-view events. We are looking forward to working with Yahoo! Sports to expand our reach and bring the sport of mixed martial arts to fight fans in every corner of the world in every possible language.”

Yahoo! Sports was already the provider of the UFC’s PPV weigh ins as well as a wide range of video content including the popular "KO of the Week" clip. Yahoo! Sports originally teamed up with the UFC in October of 2007, launching a channel that was totally dedicated to MMA. They also offer up original content from Yahoo! Sports writers Dave Meltzer, Kevin Iole, Dave Doyle and other notable mma writers. The UFC isn’t Yahoo’s only partner as far as mma goes. Yahoo! Sports also partnered with MMAjunkie.com and features content from their news syndicate as well as others.

UFC 82 Pride of a Champion will feature current UFC middleweight champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva taking on two division Pride champion Dan Henderson in a unification bout so see who is the undisputed middleweight champion of the world. Other much anticipated bouts on the card include Yushin Okami taking on Evan Tanner and Jon Fitch squaring off against Chris Wilson.

To read the full press release visit Yahoo! Sports. If you are interested in purchasing UFC 82 online click here.

More breaking MMA news is on the way!

Ten interesting facts about the UFC that you might not know.

1. Original promoters of the Ultimate Fighting Championship wanted to include such sensational side shows as alligator moats and electric fences surrounding the ring. UFC Doctors of course warned against them due to the dangers the fighters could face.

2. The UFC was founded by Rorian Gracie and Arthur Davie. It was created to promote the Gracie family’s martial arts school. Before the UFC the Gracie’s were known for inviting fighters of any style to compete against a member of the family or one of their students to prove that Gracie jiu-jitsu reigned supreme.

3. Originally Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that purchased the UFC, was only going to hold one UFC event. The event was so successful they immediately began to plan more tournaments. Good thing it was so successful.

4. With the exception of UFC 9, every UFC up until UFC 18 used the tournament style format. UFC 23 also used this format. Eight fighters would compete to start out the tournament. The four winners would then compete in semi-final matches. The two semi-final winners would compete for the championship belt. If a fighter could not continue at any point an alternate was brought in to take his place.

5. Early on the UFC would hold events in states without athletic commissions to avoid regulations. In the beginning there were no judges either. When judges were added eventually there were no clear parameters on how to judge the fight.

6. For the first couple UFC events, the referees had very little power. They could not even stop a fight. There only purpose was to make sure that the few rules that existed were enforced. The only rules at that time were no biting, fish hooking, eye gouging or throat strikes. Fortunately after the first few events refs were allowed to stop fights.

7. In 2000 SEG and the UFC almost went under. The face that SEG marketed the sport as brutal and bloody almost led to the UFC’s demise. Luckily an amateur boxer and promoter named Dana White convinced the Fertitta brothers to buy the failing organization. The UFC has since flourished to unbelievable heights.

8. Dana White managed Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz in the early days of the UFC. He also owned three gyms in the Las Vegas area.

9. After many years of "bad blood" Dana White and Tito Ortiz were going to settle things in the ring with a 3 round boxing match on March 24, 2007. Surprise, surprise the fight never happened as Tito Ortiz was a no show at the weigh ins.

10. In 2006 the UFC generated $222,766,000 in revenue, braking the PPV industry’s all time record for a single year of sales, surpassing wrestling and boxing. The largest events reached nearly 800,000 viewers.