WAMMA: Arlovski vs. Barnett winner guaranteed title fight with Fedor

onip69 · 08-07-2008, 11:58 AM

WAMMA: Arlovski vs. Barnett winner guaranteed title fight with Emelianenko
by Dann Stupp on Aug 07, 2008 at 11:17 am ET
The winner of the Oct. 11 "Affliction: Day of Reckoning" main event between Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett will, in fact, earn a title shot with WAMMA heavyweight title-holder Fedor Emelianenko later this year.

Affliction Vice President Tom Atencio hinted at the possibility ever since Barnett replaced Emelianenko at the upcoming event, and the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts today issued a press release confirming that the Arlovski vs. Barnett bout will be a "WAMMA Elimination fight."

Arlovski is currently WAMMA's No. 3-ranked heavyweight. Barnett is ranked No. 4.

"Day of Reckoning" takes place at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Three preliminary fights air on HDNet before the broadcast heads to pay per view for a seven-fight main card.

"We couldn't be more excited to see Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett face off for the right to take on Fedor for the WAMMA world heavyweight championship," WAMMA CEO Dave Szady stated in today's press release. "In the spirit of crowning undisputed champions, we couldn't be happier than to have two of the fighters who arguably deserve a shot at Fedor fighting it out for the chance to take on the champ."

The press releases stated, "The winner will earn the right to face ... Emelianenko in his first title defense later this year."

That fight would presumably take place under the Affliction banner, though the organization has yet to announce any details for a third show.

Affliction held its debut show on July 19. Emelianenko quickly disposed of Tim Sylvia, Arlovski earned a third-round TKO over a resilient Ben Rothwell, and Josh Barnett scored an early second-round knockout of Pedro Rizzo.

Emelianenko had been paired with Arlovski for the Oct. 11 event, but the famed Russian fighter and longtime PRIDE heavyweight champion had to pull out of the event with a rumored hand injury. Affliction then replaced Emelianenko with Barnett.

WAMMA formed in November of last year as MMA's first (self-proclaimed) sanctioning body with goals that include creating greater visibility for the sport and recognizing world champions in each weight class. The organization's first order of business was assembling a group of journalists and broadcasters to rank the best of the best in MMA. (In the interest of full disclosure, three MMAjunkie.com staffers are members of the rankings committee.)

Many fight promotions have joined forces with WAMMA -- except the most important one. The UFC (and it sister promotion, the WEC) have shown virtually no interest in working with the organization.

Without cooperation from the UFC and WEC -- organizations that have a stronghold on the majority of the world’s top fighters -- WAMMA will obvious problems issuing belts to additional weight classes. So far, WAMMA's efforts have been directed only to the heavyweight divsion, one in which Affliction has half of the world's top

WanderleiSliver · 08-07-2008, 12:22 PM

This makes it even more exciting, I hope Barnett wins so it sets up the fight with him and Fedor.

Crashsti · 08-07-2008, 12:26 PM

i'd certainly prefer Barnett to be next in line for Fedor. But what i am really happy about is that these guys at WAMMA and the guys at Affliction have some sort of plans in place for the top heavyweights. No long, drawn out process here. Just take the best guys and throw them at each other. No long contender process or warm -up matches here.

giguer · 08-07-2008, 03:32 PM

Nice to see that. But I think that suck because they said first that AA will fight Fedor and now they but a numer 1 contender. But wow i'm happy to see that fight happen too.

AA vs Barnett hum miam miam. Gonna be a really nice fight. Gonna go with AA don't know why.

I think the second card of Affliction will be nice too. If they are able to keep good fighter and have a good ppv, they will be there for long, that sure.

T-Bone · 08-07-2008, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WanderleiSliver

This makes it even more exciting, I hope Barnett wins so it sets up the fight with him and Fedor.

yeah, me too.

could it finally happen?

Drewplata · 08-07-2008, 08:25 PM

I guess they waited to see Randy fail in court before they promised the next shot at Fedor. Or am I a conspiracy theorist?

FightFan76 · 08-07-2008, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewplata

I guess they waited to see Randy fail in court before they promised the next shot at Fedor. Or am I a conspiracy theorist?

Nah, that is probably a pretty good call b/c that fight is the biggest possible pay day and you know Affliction wants to be the org to showcase that fight.....

subgenius · 08-07-2008, 08:43 PM

I would love to see AA beat Barnett and then beat Fedor.

That would be interesting.

And, I think that people have wanted an AA versus Fedor fight for years.

Crashsti · 08-08-2008, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by subgenius

I would love to see AA beat Barnett and then beat Fedor.

That would be interesting.

And, I think that people have wanted an AA versus Fedor fight for years.

I'm honestly less interested in AA than i am Barnett. Thats not easy for me to say since i'm not a huge Barnett fan either. Both guys are good fighters that just never seem to find thier groove. AA by lack of energy in the cage and Barnett by simply not competing after the fall of Pride. It's good that these two guys have to fight. With the potential prize being a fight with Fedor it should motivate them to perform at thier best. At least thats what i hope happens.

subgenius · 08-08-2008, 08:47 AM

Either way, seriously, we are the winners. Barnett and AA have both never fought Fedor Emelianenko. And, Barnett and AA are not, well, circus sideshow attractions. After Tim Sylvia, Barnett and AA represent real competition for Fedor. That's something that I have bitched about for a long while now. The best thing that Affliction can do is to keep bringing in real heavyweight threats to Fedor.

BTW, that WAMMA title belt looks really nice. I'm not too crazy about the huge W in the center as that does resemble the WWE world title belt. But, at least the WAMMA belt's W does not spin, LOL. WAMMA is a bit of an onomonpoeia. It's an acronym that, when said like a word, sounds like something (almost like "wam" and "pow" and "sploosh" LOL). Still, it's a lot better than simply "Affliction" for an MMA promotion.

p19101 · 08-09-2008, 08:08 AM

This is much better. This is exactly what I wanted. I felt like AA and Barnett was pretty even in ranking and it would have been a tossup who really should have fought Fedor. After this fight the winner of it is clearly the no1 contender.

subgenius · 08-09-2008, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by p19101

This is much better. This is exactly what I wanted. I felt like AA and Barnett was pretty even in ranking and it would have been a tossup who really should have fought Fedor. After this fight the winner of it is clearly the no1 contender.

If the winner of AA-Barnett loses to Fedor, then I think that the loser of AA-Barnett will still get a shot a Fedor down the road. I think that WAMMA wants to put Fedor against all of the MMA fighters that have never fought Fedor but were champions and top talent in the past five years. This is good for Fedor and for MMA.

Toshinden · 08-09-2008, 12:04 PM

I personally hope AA takes this one - I don't dislike Barnett at all; I think he's a great fighter, but I'm itching to see AA scramble back to the top of the HW rankings. I don't know if he'll beat Fedor but we all know we'd like to see it happen.

It's weird - I was no expert on PRIDE, but I could've swore I heard that Fedor fought Barnett at one point...

Apparently not.

Stu Katz · 08-09-2008, 12:04 PM

Fedor will beat either AA or Barnett but at least the fights will happen.Give Affliction credit for letting the top guys fight each other.

p19101 · 08-09-2008, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by subgenius

If the winner of AA-Barnett loses to Fedor, then I think that the loser of AA-Barnett will still get a shot a Fedor down the road. I think that WAMMA wants to put Fedor against all of the MMA fighters that have never fought Fedor but were champions and top talent in the past five years. This is good for Fedor and for MMA.

Perhaps futher down the road...

But by the time Fedor is ready to fight again after facing off against AA or Barnett it should be time for him to fight Couture if nothings comes in between.

MickTaig · 08-10-2008, 07:06 PM

Both Barnett and AA pose the biggest threat to Fedor right now. I'd equally like to see either fight Fedor. A possible upside to Barnett loosing could mean a Barnett vs Aleks Emelienenko bout......provided Aleks can get his "licensing" issues resolved.