Affliction’s January 24th card at the Honda Center in Anaheim is coming together nicely and will feature a star-studded cast headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski. With a strong main event and the participation of Josh Barnett, who would presumably be next in line for a title shot should he win, this card should set the stage for future events despite their financial woes. Not if the UFC has it's way, but with Golden Boy promotions entering the fold will Affliction be able to maintain their strong core of fighters and contend with the UFC?  

The upcoming Affliction card, snuggled nicely between UFC  93 “Franklin vs. Henderson” on January 17, and UFC 94 “St. Pierre vs. BJ Penn on January 31,” Affliction be safe from the live-event counter programming of the UFC which put together a short notice UFC event featuring Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin to draw eyes away from Emelianenko’s dismantling of Tim Sylvia.

It appears unlikely that the UFC will be able to put together another live event between their two events in order to counter the Affliction card like they did last time, but you never know… A more likely scenario may be the UFC putting a strong programming schedule on Spike TV to contend with the same time slot and hope to draw eyes away from their PPV. Perhaps a recent UFC card shown in full for free at the same time? MMA fans may be forced to make a choice between free UFC programming on Spike, or the live Affliction PPV card.

The last round went to the UFC in terms of eyeballs on screens, who will win this time?

 
The Official Affliction card is as follows

 
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski
Paul Buentello vs. Kiril Sidellnikov
Josh Barnett vs. TBA
Vitor Belfort vs. TBA
Renato Sobral vs. Matt Lindland
Chris Horodecki vs. Dan Lauzon
Rogerio Nogueira vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
Jay Hieron vs. Jason High
Mark Hominick vs. LC Davis
Albert Rios vs. Antonio Duarte
Brett Cooper vs. TBA