Andrei Arlovski and Fedor Emelianenko Set to Headline Next Affliction Event

According to a recently posted article on Yahoo! Sports, Fedor Emelianenko is set to defend his WAMMA championship belt against Andrei Arlovski on October 11th. This will be the next Affliction PPV event, and it will take place at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett both turned in stellar performances at Affliction's first PPV event last weekend. In the end though, Andrei Arlovski was given the shot at "The Last Emperor". I can't say that I blame Affliction for making this their main event - Arlovski vs Fedor should be an extremely entertaining match-up.

It is interesting that Affliction is choosing to host their event on October 11th. Why is it interesting? Because the UFC has their UFC 89 event the very next weekend. Dana White has consistently tried to distract MMA fans from tuning into other promotions by aggressively counter-programming. With their own event the very next weekend, can the UFC possibly pull off another live (and free) event on that short of notice, or will they do something else, like show a recent PPV event for free (maybe UFC 87?), or have a two to three hour block of programming centering around one of their more popular fighters.

Back to Affliction. As mentioned, Arlovski vs Fedor should be an extremely entertaining main event fight, and will likely draw more buyers than the Sylvia vs Fedor fight that headlined Affliction's first PPV card.

Arlovski has a professional MMA record of 13-5-0, with nine of his victories coming via knockout. He has a tremendous amount of experience, having fought over a dozen matches in the UFC before defecting to Affliction. He has fought Tim Sylvia three times in his career - one victory via submission at UFC 51 - Super Saturday, and two losses (UFC 59, UFC 61). Considering that Fedor smashed Sylvia in just 36 seconds, does this not bode well for the "Pitbull"?

Fedor needs no introduction. He is widely considered to be the best heavyweight fighter in the world, and many would consider him the best pound-for-pound fighter as well. Fedor has a lifetime record of 28-1-0, with six of his victories coming via knockout, and 15 coming via submission. He has beaten an incredible list of heavyweight opponents during his career - Tim Sylvia, Matt Lindland, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mark Coleman, just to name a few.

It appears as though Affliction will be giving MMA fans another great card in October. It will be interesting to see what other matches make up this event. We'll keep you posted.

Source: Affliction to Hit Vegas in October

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