Written by Jim Murphy
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Tuesday, August 19 2008
The Barnett/Arlovski main event at Affliction: Day of Reckoning could be an all time classic.
The sporting world provides countless examples of an “alternate” course of action working out better than the original plan. The New York Yankees were happy with Wally Pipp as their first baseman until he sat out with a headache one day, allowing his backup—Lou Gehrig—to become a legend. Kurt Warner didn’t get his shot to start for the St. Louis Rams until Trent Green suffered an injury and led the team to a Superbowl championship. Two players were chosen ahead of Michael Jordan in the 1984 NBA Draft and it’s doubtful that the Chicago Bulls ever regretted only having the #3 pick.
A similar phenomenon could be at work in the main event of Affliction: Day of Reckoning. The original main even was planned to be a WAMMA heavyweight title defense for Fedor Emelianenko against Andrei Arlovski. That plan was scrapped due to Fedor’s nagging hand injury, forcing Affliction to change the main event to a match between Arlovski and “The Babyface Assassin” Josh Barnett . The winner of the match will become the #1 contender for the WAMMA belt (assuming that Randy Couture remains embroiled in his legal battle with the UFC, of course) and will meet Fedor on a future Affliction card, most likely in spring of 2009.
While there was initial sense of disappointment at the announcement of Fedor’s withdrawal, its become apparent that what has transpired is in the best interest of everyone concerned including Affliction, the fighters, the WAMMA title—and even the fans who could be treated to one of the best heavyweight matchups in the history of the sport.
Obviously Affliction would have loved to get Fedor Emelianenko booked on their 2nd event regardless of the opponent. His devastating beatdown of Tim Sylvia at Affliction: Banned solidified his position as the best heavyweight in the world, and helped the promotion achieve a greater degree of legitimacy relative to the UFC. Its one thing for the UFC to summarily dismiss an upstart promotion, but it’s not so easy when the Affliction heavyweight marquee attraction has a 2-0-1 record against current UFC titleholder Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and a brutal domination of recent champ Tim Sylvia. Affliction clearly wanted to “press their advantage” against the UFC’s weakest division.
However, there are a number of positives in the current scenario. The winner of the Arlovski/Barnett matchup will be “battle tested” and have proven himself as an even more legitimate contender to the title. It gives Fedor a chance to heal his hand injury, and gives Affliction more time to promote the Russian fighting god’s next appearance. For Barnett, it gives him a chance to prove himself once again before an American audience and to possibly earn the shot against Emelianenko that eluded him during his career in PRIDE. While it may seem that Arlovski—who’s gone from having a title shot to being part of a “challenger eliminator—is getting the worst of the situation, there’s even a silver lining for him. A victory over Barnett would prove him to be a worthy challenger in the ring, as opposed to just being the “most marketable” opponent. Furthermore, dealing with the heavy hands and ground mastery of the “Baby Face Assassin” is likely as good of a preparation as any for fighting Fedor. Should he get past Barnett he’ll have a better shot at upsetting the WAMMA heavyweight champion that he would have if he’d not had the intermediary fight.
The biggest winner, however, could be the MMA fan base as Barnett/Arlovski shapes up to be a potential classic. Everyone’s heard the old line that “styles make fights”—and in this case the styles matchup perfectly. Barnett, a former UFC champion and reigning King of Pancrase, is one of the best submission wrestlers in the world. He’s also a very effective standup fighter with KO power as he demonstrated in his Affliction Banned rematch victory over Pedro Rizzo. Barnett is also an incredibly intelligent fighter—his gameplan in the Rizzo fight is an excellent case in point. It looked during the first round like he was struggling with Rizzo’s good standup defense and slick counterpunching; in reality he was sizing him up and looking for an opening. This paid huge dividends during the 2nd round, when he timed a Rizzo counter perfectly and landed a fight ending KO punch over top.
Arlovski, meanwhile, has become one of the most dangerous strikers in the sport. He’s always possessed good power, but had trouble leveraging it into fight success at times. Under superstar boxing trainer Freddy Roach, he’s improved his striking technique, is more effective at putting together combinations and most importantly appears to have found a balance between wild aggression and being overly cautious and tentative. Roach has been so impressed with Arlovski’s study of “the sweet science” that he’s suggested that a boxing career for “The Pit Bull” is not out of the question.
Arlovski is also something of a reverse mirror image of Barnett—while he’s shown a tendency in his recent fights to favor his ever improving standup skills it’s easy to forget that he’s a very effective groundfighter. He’s got an extensive background in Sambo and has been studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu throughout his MMA career. More recently, he’s been training with Randy Couture who has improved his effectiveness in the clinch and in using “dirty boxing” techniques.
There have always been some lingering questions about Arlovski’s toughness, but those appeared to be answered in the affirmative during his bloody brawl with Ben Rothwell. In addition to taking a beating of his own from the insanely tough, titanium jawed Rothwell he didn’t come unraveled when he couldn’t get his opponent to go down despite nailing him with over a dozen solid power shots. Arlovski shook off the disappointment—and the blood—and just kept pressing his game plan which ultimately earned him a TKO victory over a formidable opponent who’d run off a 13 fight winning streak prior to their Affliction: Banned matchup.
Barnett may have a slight advantage based on his experience against top level opposition, and his proven ability to come up with a sound tactical fight plan. That small intangible notwithstanding, this fight is a tossup. Barnett may be marginally better on the ground, but Arlovski can hold his own. “The Pit Bull” may have the better standup, but Barnett is pretty effective with his “dukes” as well. Both fighters prefer to fight against aggressive opponents, and they’ll definitely have that in this matchup.
For a “Plan B” fight, Affliction would have been hard pressed to come up with a better matchup. This could be a “fight of the year” contender and has the potential to go down as one of the epic heavyweight battles in MMA history. The winner will definitely have earned the right to face Fedor for the title of best heavyweight in the world.
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