A Brand of its Own.

When you think of professional sports and the organizations associated with them, three letter acronyms usually come to mind. Whether it's the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, EPL, etc. It's looking like we're getting closer to another brand making its way into the list; The UFC.

Competition rises and falls, a lot quicker in mixed martial arts than with other industries. Fight promotions seem to fold every other week, whether it's Pride a few years ago or Palace Fighting Championships recently. Dana White has always talked about a push to brand the UFC as the professional mixed martial arts organization. It seems as though they're finally poised to take that spot.

After a failed drug test by Josh Barnett, and the refusal of pay per-view promoters to go on with the third show, Affliction finally folded as a fight promoter. The UFC's biggest competition in the United States has gone under after only putting on two shows. I'm comparing apples to oranges in a sense, but it reminds me of seeing the USFL and the XFL try to compete with the NFL. Though the USFL did fairly well, the management ran them into the ground.

With Affliction folded and once again a UFC sponsor(as a clothing line), Dana White should be licking his chops. It seems a foregone conclusion that the UFC will become THE professional mixed martial arts organization, but all of the pieces are falling, or should I say collapsing in place for the UFC to dominate even further.

Dana White has announced he has a press conference tentatively scheduled for July 31, and has a lot of big things to announce. If you think back to last year, when he teased the masses with one of his press conferences, the UFC was officially sponsored by Bud Light; a huge step forward for a company that was looked at as a promoter of human cockfighting some 15 years prior. There are rumors going around about a possible deal with ESPN and the signing of some of the free agents that Affliction released. The deal with ESPN seems far-fetched due to the fact that ESPN already promotes another fighting organization, Bellator FC. My guess is that the announcement will be a welcome home party for both Tito Ortiz and Vitor Belfort. I'm eagerly awaiting the press conference.