Dana White Announces July 18 Frees Card

Dana White has just countered the July 19, 2008 Affliction event with a shot of his own. He will hold a free card on Spike on July 19 to offset the Affliction pay per view show. The free pay per view show will have the current pound for pound mixed martial arts fighter in the world, Anderson Silva fighting for the first time as a light heavyweight. He will be fighting James Irvin. Irvin (14-4-1) is a hard puncher who needed just eight seconds to knock out Houston (The Assassin) Alexander in April at UFC Fight Night 13.

UFC president Dana White said the Silva-Irvin card will take place in Las Vegas July 19, the same night as clothing company-turned-promoter Affliction holds its Affliction Banned show in Anaheim.  Affliction names its show Banned in response to the UFC putting a stop to fighters wearing Affliction gear at UFC events. However, many UFC stars are sponsored by Affliction clothing like Chuck Liddell, Sean Sherk, Georges St Pierre, Matt Serra and Michael Bisping. 

  That means the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter will be fighting the same night as the former pound-for-pound top fighter Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko. The UFC will be taking away a lot of potential pay per view buyers from the Affliction card whose main event includes Fedor versus former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia. The event is huge as a lot of big name MMA start will be fighting for Affliction like Josh Barnet, Matt Lindland, Pedro Rizzo, Aleksander Emelianenko, Andrei Arlovski, Matt Lindland, Josh Barnett, Vitor Belfort, Renato Sobral, Terry Martin, Mark (The Machine) Hominick and Mike Pyle.

Though the main event has been announced, Dana White has not announced the under cards except for Lightweight Frankie “The Answer” Edgar fighting Hermes Franca. A free event will definitely hurt the pay per view buys. The war is definitely on as the UFC show will be shown free on Spike TV, compared to $39.99 to watch Affliction on pay-per-view.

Though Dana White won’t admit it this means he is very scared of Affliction MMA as opposed to other MMA organizations like EliteXC as he has never done anything so drastic to derail another organization.

Now that the gloves are off it is only the mixed martial arts fan that will benefit which is reminiscent to the wars of the WWE and the WCW between Vince McMahon and Ted Turner.

Odds for the free event have not been released but check out Bookmaker.com and BetCRIS.com. These are the two online sportsbooks with the first online mixed martial arts betting lines.

The Affliction online betting lines have been released

Tim Sylvia +320 
Fedor Emelianenko -400 

Pedro Rizzo +280 
Josh Barnettt -350 

Fabio Negao +320 
Matt Lindland -400 

Mike Whitehead +215 
Renato Sobral -275 

Paul Buentello +260 
Aleksander Emelianenko -320 

Brett Cooper +240
Mike Pyle -300

Bet at Bookmaker.com and BetCRIS.com today