'Affliction: Banned' Debut Card Set for July 19th

Affliction Clothing has officially released details of its debut card, which takes place July 19.

The event is set for the Honda Center ("The Pond") in Anaheim, Calif., and features a previously announced main event between Fedor Emelianenko and Tim Sylvia. The main card airs live on pay per view.

The organization has also confirmed a number of former UFC and PRIDE veterans for its event, entitled "Banned," which is a knock at the clothing company recently being banned as a sponsor of UFC and EliteXC fighters.

The UFC has obvious reasons for banning the clothing line due to Randy Couture's affiliation with the company. Promoting another fight organization is a breech of Randy Couture's contract. EliteXC is banning the clothing line only because Affliction is now an official MMA organization and it wouldn't make sense for them to promote the competition.

The Affliction fight card is a very impressive one. They haven't released their complete roster due to there being signings very rapidly but if they can put together fight cards like this one, they could pose a serious threat to the UFC.

Company executives report the following line-up:

MAIN CARD (PAY PER VIEW)

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia
Josh Barnett vs. Pedro Rizzo
Ben Rothwell vs. TBA
Paul Buentello vs. Aleksander Emelianenko
Matt Lindland vs. Fabio Nascimento
Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Mike Whitehead

PRELIMINARY CARD

Ray Lazama vs. Justin Levens
Mark Hominick vs. Savant Young
J.J. Ambrose vs. Patrick Speight
Brett Cooper vs. Mike Pyle

Rumor's are flying that Ben Rothwell's opponent will be former UFC heavyweight champ Andrei Arlovski which gives the card even more credibility.

This card clearly proves that Dana White's disclaimer that the best fighters are in the UFC is not even close to being true. The most popular organization is the UFC and that's it.

That being said, it's gonne be extremely tough for Affliction to be able to lay down fight cards of this magnitude with their temporary deep pockets. They're spending just about every dime from their clothing line to pay the fighters. And these guys are getting paid well for this fight card.

They need to draw some serious numbers to be able to put on another packed card like this one just to be able to pay the fighters in the future. Time will only tell but if they promote and market the fighters properly it could make for a very interesting couple years in the MMA world. They're already getting help from Dana White and the UFC for cutting some serious talent from their organization.