From FightLinker. This provides much more insight. All of the research I have done gives NO FRUTITION WHATSOEVER to the rumors of Affliction Clothing starting a fight promotion. Put 2 and 2 togahter. Zuffa hates the IFL. Xtreme Couture has an IFL team. They are pissed at Randy, and they are making all fighters suffer because of yet another petty childish squabble of Dana "good to be" White.
Looks like Affliction is paying the price for setting up that whole Randy / Fedor date last week. The big report is that the UFC has banned Affliction from sponsoring fighters because Affliction now represents ‘competition’. This is all one big rumor at the moment but if you ask me the proof is in the pudding (whatever the **** that means): No fighters at UFC80 were wearing those god awful shirts.
Now if the UFC existed in a bubble, I’d be down with them banning Affliction shirts. They’re tacky as hell and are only useful to be able to easily identify meatheads at a distance. However, the UFC doesn’t live inside a bubble, so I have to say that banning a huge clothing company that’s basically developing a fashion trend through the UFC (albeit a horrible one) IS A TERRIBLE ****ING IDEA.
Honestly, Affliction and UFC have become pretty much synonymous : people see Affliction shirts and they think UFC. People watch UFC and they expect to see Affliction shirts. And this isn’t a bad thing for the UFC : tons of celebrities and sports stars have ****ty taste, and a day doesn’t pass where there aren’t pictures taken of stars sporting a GSP or XTreme Couture shirt.
Of course, herein lies the issue: Dana White doesn’t like how Affliction is in bed with Randy, and you better believe the whole Randy / Fedor Affliction adverts probably pushed poor Dana over the edge. So now Dana has decided he don’t need no stinking Affliction. And hey, maybe he doesn’t.
Again, I’m not gonna complain as a fan because those shirts were like war crimes against my eyes. But you already saw that horrific velvet shirt Sean Sherk wore at UFC80. These bastards are gonna be dressing like fugs regardless of the ban. So putting our hatred of Affliction aside, ask yourself: how smart is it to run one of the biggest clothing sponsors out of your company?
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