Doggy Bag: Affliction for All

Hopefully this gets to you before the weekend mailbag is published. With Affliction canceling its event on Friday due to Josh Barnett’s positive drug test and its inability to find a suitable opponent for Fedor Emelianenko, who is the biggest victim in this, the fighters on the card left with nothing or the fans? Will the fighters still receive compensation for training? Will this harm our precious sport?
-- Rob Hubbard

Brian Knapp, associate editor: The cancellation of Affliction “Trilogy” left a lot of losers in its wake, not to mention frustration, shock and anger. Though I do not believe it harms the sport in the long-term -- the UFC and Strikeforce remain healthy and vibrant promotions -- it leaves a lot of innocent mixed martial artists out in the cold. As of Saturday afternoon, the question of fighter compensation remained largely unanswered.

However, Monte Cox -- Ben Rothwell’s manager -- told Sherdog.com the standard contract entitles fighters to show money only when they show up to fight. Cox conceded nothing in Rothwell’s contract allows them to pursue the matter further and confirmed that Affliction Entertainment Vice President Tom Atencio was offering T-shirt deals as a way to soften the financial blow to the fighters scheduled to compete. Rothwell was set to lock horns with Chase Gormley.

Former International Fight League welterweight champion and UFC veteran Jay Hieron, booked to meet Paul Daley at the event, expressed the sentiment I’m certain permeates the doomed “Trilogy” roster when he spoke to Sherdog.com news editor Loretta Hunt on Friday at Xtreme Couture Mixed Martial Arts in Las Vegas.

“I know we all put our lives on hold, and bills stacked up for these fights,” Hieron said. “I paid my trainers, my sparring partners for this fight.”

To cancel a show of this magnitude and impact the lives of so many people leaves one to question whether or not Affliction should have ever entered the world of fight promotion. Fans lose big, too. Most had for years looked forward to a Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett matchup. A meeting between the world’s top two heavyweights now seems unlikely as ever. What becomes of the other nixed high-profile bouts -- Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Gegard Mousasi, Vitor Belfort vs. Jorge Santiago, Paul Buentello vs. Gilbert Yvel and Daley vs. Hieron -- is anyone’s guess.

Barnett emerges as perhaps the biggest loser in all this. Should his failed test prove valid, I’m not sure he ever fully recovers. Two positive drug tests on one fighter -- he also tested positive after he defeated Randy Couture in 2002 -- should be grounds for permanent exile. At the very least, Barnett will be left to finish out his career in Europe or Japan, where the professional MMA ground remains far less fertile.

Tragic that such a talented fighter seems so willing to risk everything, including his career and reputation, in a futile effort to find an edge.