The Weekly Wrap: Jan. 17 - Jan. 23

Affliction media blitz

Affliction launched a much-needed media campaign this week for its second pay-per-view offering, "Day of Reckoning," on Saturday night.

Television spots for the show ran all over Direct TV sports programming and on HDNet. The New York Times published a profile of Feder Emelianenko, who headlines the show against Andrei Arlvoski in his third U.S. appearance. Though Emelianenko has been portrayed as a Russian celebrity in some circles, a prominent sports writer in that country told The New York Times that awareness of Fedor is limited there. Emelianenko, followed by Dana White-esque video blog cameras, also made appearances opening the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, did signings at a Russian bookstore and hit the radio circuit. Artful posters of Emelianenko and Arlovksi's faces, which point passerby to Affliction websites Whoisfedor.com and Whoisandrei.com, appeared on walls around Los Angeles.

In addition, Fox Sports Net aired a documentary on Emelianenko this week entitled "The Baddest Man on the Planet." The special looked at Emelianenko from all angles, including in training, in the steam room, in prayer and among friends. A few revealing scenes came when Emelianenko trained with young protégé Kiril Sidelnikov, who fights Paul Buentello on this weekend’s Affliction card. Fedor was recorded uttering to “Baby Fedor” what amounted to trash talk ("The crazy is coming. The crazy is going to happen now") before exploding into aggression. While the documentary did highlight Fedor's win over Tim Sylvia on the first Affliction card in July, it did not touch on the fact that he's fighting Arlovski on Saturday.

As for Arvloski, he rolled out the final installments of a seven-part web video series called "Arlovksi 360," which was commissioned by his representatives. It was one of several streaming Internet video features to hype the Affliction card. The special followed the Belarusian as he prepared, splicing fervent training footage set to heavy metal music with interviews. Arlovski, who comes into Saturday’s fight under the tutelage of the famous boxing trainer Freddie Roach and his usual Chicago cast of instructors, stands to earn more than $1 million if he can defeat Emelianenko, according to a report by Yahoo! Sport's Dave Meltzer. Roach told Yahoo! he'd like Arlovksi to face heavyweight boxing champion Nikolai Valuev in a boxing match if he beats Fedor.

In another boxing tie-in, the sport’s top draw, Oscar de la Hoya, represented Affliction partner Golden Boy Promotions in two press appearances this week, posing alongside Emelianenko and Tito Ortiz at a press conference in New York. De la Hoya, who founded Golden Boy, said he'd seen Affliction's first event in July and decided then to get officially involved in the sport. De la Hoya's presence brought media attention, but most of it focused on his future in boxing and whether his involvement in an MMA promotion marked his last days in the sport.

De la Hoya said he would be representing Golden Boy at this weekend’s Affliction show, while his partner Richard Schaefer will represent the company at the Shane Mosley vs. Antonio Margarito fight it is promoting on Saturday in Los Angeles. The boxing match will be broadcasted on HBO. In addition to U.S. pay-per-view, the Affliction show will air Sunday on the Bravo 2 cable channel in the United Kingdom, a station that used to air UFC shows.

Also this week, a last-minute change was made to the fight card. Lightweight Chris Horodecki was denied medical clearance to compete due to a bulging disc in his neck that was weakening his right arm. Dan Lauzon will instead face 7-1 Bobby Green out of Riverside Submission Fighting MMA, who has had all of his career fights in the past year. While the state athletic commission did not allow Horodecki to compete, noted rule breaker Gilbert Yvel was cleared to face Josh Barnett in the show’s co-main event.

All fighters made weight with little fuss on Friday, led by Emelianenko t his usual 230 pounds and Arlovski at a slightly heavier 237 pounds.