Tom Atencio Addresses Ticket Sales Rumors

Last week, rumors were circulating that Affliction had only sold 1,500 tickets for its Affliction: "Day of Reckoning" event on January 24th. The event is being held at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

The rumors of weak ticket sales for this event were started by an apparent "source" at the Honda Center. The source claimed that for their first event, "Banned", Affliction had sold 6,000 tickets by this time.

In the interest of fairness, we wanted to post Tom Atencio's response to these rumors. Here it is:

"Just wanted to come on here and respond to all the rumors going around that we have only sold 1200-1500 seats. First of all i have no idea where this information is coming from, but it could'nt be farther from the truth. In reality we are opening up more seating to accomodate the demand for tickets. This event is stacked from top to bottom, and i personally cant wait to see every fight! For those of you that can't make it out to the event be sure to watch the main card live on pay PPV as well as the complete undercard for free on HDNET.

THANKS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT!
Tom Atencio Affliction Entertainment Group "

This statement was posted on the MMA Underground Forums.

I believe that the paid attendance for their first PPV event was just over 11,200.

While the weak economy is surely having a negative impact on ticket sales, I find it very hard to believe the 1,500 number. That would be a dramatic drop-off from their first event, and I just don't see it. The card is pretty stacked and features a very strong main event fight (Fedor vs Arlovski).

We'll get the real paid attendance figures once the event is finished, however I tend to believe Atencio on this one. The 1,500 number just doesn't seem believable, especially given the surging interest in mixed martial arts fighting.