This Day in MMA History: July 19

Affliction’s foray into fight promotion started with a bang. The clothing company, in conjunction with Adrenaline MMA, held its debut event on July 19, 2008, and everything about Affliction “Banned” was screamingly ambitious: the Honda Center venue, the pyrotechnic production values, the presence of Michael Buffer on the mic, the high-profile association with Donald Trump and the choice to go with a pay-per-view right out of the gate. Above all, the lineup was the epitome of "go big or go home," headlined by Fedor Emelianenko, easily the highest-profile fighter outside the Ultimate Fighting Championship at the time and by acclamation the best heavyweight in the sport. He topped a bill loaded with heavyweights, including three former UFC champs, one of whom, Tim Sylvia, was matched up with “The Last Emperor” in the main event.

It must be said here that many if not most of these choices seemed explicitly designed to antagonize the UFC. Certainly the relationship with once and future UFC ally Trump was calculated to sting, but the real middle-finger moment was the presence of reigning UFC heavyweight champ Randy Couture, who was at the time embroiled in a legal battle with his promoter. The UFC responded by counter-programming Affliction with a quickly assembled free card on Spike TV, headlined by Anderson Silva stepping up to light heavyweight to face James Irvin.

Distractions and pettiness aside, the main event at Affliction “Banned” was seen as a worthy challenge for Emelianenko; Sylvia was a two-time UFC champion who had been champ just a year before. Beyond Sylvia, the presence of Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett seemed to offer a solid gauntlet of future matchups for the Russian, who had encountered difficulty finding suitably accomplished foes since the fall of Pride Fighting Championships the year before.

The fight itself was brief and brutal: Emelianenko stunned Sylvia with a pair of right and left hooks, dropped him to all fours with another combination punctuated by an uppercut and then swarmed all over his downed opponent with punches from behind. As Sylvia went to his back, then again to his hands and knees, Emelianenko hopped on his back, sunk the hooks and cinched up a rear-naked choke. Moments later, at just 36 seconds of the first round, Sylvia tapped. The Honda Center crowd went berserk.

The electrifying, humiliating thrashing was the best possible outcome for Affliction, which was clearly building its future model around the Russian star. Arlovski and Barnett’s wins in the two fights before his appeared to lay out the road map for The Last Emperor’s immediate future, with the tantalizing idea that at some future point he might even fight Couture, who entered the ring to congratulate him. That road map would hit a wall within a year, but that’s a story for a different day in MMA history. For now, Emelianenko had made Affliction’s debut event a qualified success—and underscored his status as the greatest heavyweight on the planet.