Fight\Zen

So it's pretty clear that Josh Barnett made a huge, idiotic, career altering mistake. Twice. IMO, there's no clearer sign that you no longer belong in the "big leagues" than if your success seems directly tied to your use of banned substances, as it does in this case.

But...

Let's not pretend for a minute that the Babyface is to blame for Affliction's woes. They, to simplify, suffered from the same problem EliteXC did: They put all of their chickens in one basket. One pudgy, yet incredibly talented, Russian basket. Who knows how much undisclosed money they funneled to Fedor, not to mention all of the "high profile" fighters that fought Fedor and never fought for Affliction again. Simply, as you all know, they spent more than they had. They took a gamble and it didn't pan out... all signs pointed to them not making it much further than 3 anyway.

Affliction goes back to sponsoring the UFC, Barnett goes back to Japan... all is right with Dana White. Fedor goes back to relative main stream obscurity? Let's hope not. Let's also hope that Strikeforce doesn't decide to counter program the UFC with a multi-million dollar Fedor fight. At least not yet...

PS: Here's a great knock-out highlights vid, courtesy of Sportsviews.com. There's a dis-proportionate amount of vintage Wandy, but when has that ever been a bad thing?

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