UFC Planning July 19th Event
by Robert Sargent
Clearly threatened by the stacked card at Affliction: "Banned" on July 19th, the UFC is planning to hold an event on the same night, airing live on Spike TV. The rumoured main event features Wanderlei Silva taking on Brandon Vera.
This is nothing more than a desperate ploy by the UFC, which has seen many of its top fighters leave recently, to keep fans from tuning in to the stacked competitor's card.
The UFC event, being hastily put together on just a few weeks' notice, is tentatively scheduled to be held in Las Vegas, with the main event of the evening featuring "The Axe Murderer" Wanderlei Silva taking on Brandon "The Truth" Vera, with Vera moving down to 205 for the fight.
While such a fight is very interesting, one fighter's UFC career is likely to take an abrupt nosedive with a loss. With the UFC's heavyweight division sorely lacking talent, a Vera loss would all but end his dreams of title contention in any UFC weight class.
For Silva, a loss would be utterly devastating, while a win won't do much for his career in the UFC. The light heavyweight division is already full of top contenders who are waiting for title shots, and beating Vera, who has yet to compete at the 205-pound level, would do little to vault Silva into an upcoming title fight.
The remainder of the Spike TV card has yet to be announced, but the potential main event is a worthy topic for conversation.
By contrast, the Affliction card has been well-known for quite some time.
Headlined by a World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (WAMMA) Unified Heavyweight Championship bout between the final PRIDE Heavyweight Champion, "The Last Emperor" Fedor Emelianenko, and two-time UFC Heavyweight Champion, Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia, the card also features an incredibly talent-rich undercard.
On the pay-per-view portion of the card, former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski takes on former IFL heavyweight star "Big" Ben Rothwell.
Former UFC Heavyweight Champion "The Babyface Assassin" Josh Barnett battles former UFC heavyweight contender Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo for the second time, looking to even the score.
Former UFC light heavyweight contender Renato "Babalu" Sobral takes on former IFL star Mike Whitehead.
Former UFC middleweight star Matt "The Law" Lindland returns to competition to take on Fabio "Negao" Nascimento.
Airing live on Fox Sports Net in the United States and The Fight Network in Canada, other preliminary fights feature a number of top-10 ranked stars.
Former PRIDE standout, and brother to Fedor, "The Russian Nightmare" Aleksander Emelianenko makes his U.S. debut when he battles an ex-champion and contender of many top promotions, Paul "The Headhunter" Buentello.
Antonio Rogerio "Minotoro" Nogueira, another former PRIDE standout and twin brother to current UFC Heavyweight Champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, will take on the journeyman veteran of countless promotions, Vernon "Tiger" White.
Other scheduled bouts for the evening include UFC veteran Terry Martin taking on former UFC and PRIDE contender Vitor "The Phenom" Belfort.
Justin Levins takes on the undefeated Patrick Speight.
JJ Ambrose will face Xtreme Couture standout Mike "Quicksand" Pyle.
Lastly, Savant Young will battle former TKO Featherweight Champion Mark "The Machine" Hominick.
The Affliction card is packed with talent from top to bottom, so any competition that the UFC intends to create on July 19th better be worth the time to watch.
