Affliction has rearranged the fight card for its January 24 Day of Reckoning show, with Matt Lindland now scheduled to take on Vitor Belfort in a middleweight matchup.Lindland had previously been scheduled to face Renato "Babalu" Sobral, but Affliction vice president Tom Atencio told MMA Weekly that he decided to pull Babalu and do Lindland vs. Belfort instead. Apparently not everyone at Affliction got the memo; Affliction's web site still lists Babalu vs. Lindland.
Lindland vs. Belfort should be a good fight. Lindland is 21-5, and his only losses in the last four years are to Fedor Emelianenko and Rampage Jackson. Belfort has a record of 17-8, which is a little more impressive than it sounds when you look at the list of guys he's fought; the eight losses come against Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem (twice), Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture (twice), Chuck Liddell and Kazushi Sakuraba.
So Affliction's pay-per-view show has a good main event featuring Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski, and a good undercard fight of Lindland vs. Belfort. If it can add a good opponent for heavyweight Josh Barnett to its undercard, that sounds like a fight card that's worth $50 to hard-core MMA fans. It might not be a good enough card to get Golden Boy Promotions excited, but it's a good card nonetheless.
UPDATE: Five Ounces of Pain reports that Babalu is still expected to fight on the Day of Reckoning card, just not against Lindland.
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