- The go-home marketing push was palpable this week heading into one of the biggest weekends in MMA history, as both Affliction and the Ultimate Fighting Championship stage warring supercards on Saturday. Affliction took out several ads for its pay-per-view during the "UFC Wired" syndicated show that airs on MyNetworkTV affiliates across the United States. Some ads featured stars like Andrei Arlovski, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Josh Barnett and Ben Rothwell shadowboxing in rain and fire, while others featured quotes from Joe Rogan and John McCarthy praising the caliber of heavyweight fighters on the card. Donald Trump stumped for the event on Howard Stern radio’s show this week as well. Affliction has ratcheted up its plans for Saturday night, expanding the pay-per-view broadcast from three to four hours to include eight fights, according to MMA Junkie. Affliction management claims the event at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., headlined by Fedor Emelianenko v. Tim Sylvia, has sold about 10,700 tickets as of Thursday in an arena configured to hold 12 to 13,000.

The UFC loaded up its run-up to “Ultimate Fight Night: Silva v. Irvin,” scheduling a marathon of UFC Unleashed pre-taped fights capped by "Ultimate Knockouts 5" all prior to the 9 p.m. live start time on Spike TV. The three hours of fights will be headlined by Anderson Silva v. James Irvin. UFC officials are hoping Silva's prominent position on the free card, and the accompanying marketing of him as the world’s best fighter, will add a missing element of box office appeal to the middleweight champion. To that end, the UFC took the unusual step of producing a "Countdown" show for Spike TV to hype the free event. The card will be replayed several times, including as part of a UFC marathon on Spike that will run against the EliteXC show on CBS next Saturday.

In some markets, Affliction looks to have more than the UFC to contend with in terms of reaching an audience. The Bravo Channel in the United Kingdom will not be airing the show as was originally planned, according to The Wrestling Observer, and the "Affliction Live" pre-show, set for 8 p.m. EST on Fox Sports Net as a lead-in to the pay show, will be preempted in some markets for other sports programming, including Major League Lacrosse in Boston. The pre-show, which will feature the three remaining fights that didn’t make the pay-per-view, also airs live on The Fight Network.

NEWSWORTHY

- Quinton "Rampage" Jackson made headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, as the former UFC light heavyweight champion was arrested after a series of bizarre episodes in Costa Mesa, Calif. Local media reported Jackson struck several cars on July 15, including sideswiping a car driven by a pregnant woman, while driving his Ford F-530 pickup truck, a large vehicle that had his chain-wearing likeness emblazoned on both sides. Police allege Jackson put lives at risk by weaving in and out of traffic during the chase, running red lights and swerving onto sidewalks. A police chase ensued, and Jackson continued to flee even though the tires on his vehicle were badly damaged. Jackson eventually stopped and was arrested after being held at gunpoint. Police said Jackson was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Jackson was released from jail the next day on $25,000 bail, which was presumably paid by UFC President Dana White, who flew to the scene immediately and told The Boston Herald he actually beat Jackson to the jailhouse.

The day after he’d been bailed, concerns about Jackson's mental state and behavior led a friend to flag down a police officer outside the fighter’s home requesting he be examined and given medical attention. Jackson was admitted to a hospital in Irvine, Calif. for evaluation. He faces charges of hit-and-run driving, felony evading and reckless driving. The shocker was splashed across the gossip and sports press, most notably TMZ.com, which carried stark photographs of the scene, including one of Jackson lying on cement at gunpoint. ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption" mocked the episode, and Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke termed Jackson his early nominee for “Dumbest Athlete of the Year.” Jackson's future in the sport could very well be in question; he’s due in court Aug. 15.

- Word leaked this week that the UFC is in the process of purchasing the beleaguered International Fight League. MMAPayout.com reported that producers of the weekly "Inside MMA" show on HD-Net were prepared to break the story. The IFL has very publicly been on the auction block since an Aug. 15 event in New Jersey was cancelled. The UFC has signed a crop of IFL veterans in recent weeks, three of whom will fight on Saturday night. A deal is expected to include the IFL's film library as well as fighter contracts, including those of champions like Roy Nelson, Wagnney Fabiano and Jay Hieron, as well as top IFL lightweight star Chris Horodecki. An IFL purchase would mark the fourth major acquisition for the UFC's parent company Zuffa in the past two years, a buying spree that has included the World Fighting Alliance, World Extreme Cagefighting and Pride Fighting Championships.

- There were several significant developments in the WEC this week. The next title defense for top star Urijah Faber is set for Sept. 10 against Mike Brown, an exceptionally strong fighter coming off a victory over former featherweight title contender Jeff Curran. The bout will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida on a bill also featuring the Paulo Filho v. Chael Sonnen rematch for the WEC middleweight title. In another bout confirmed this week for Sept. 10, NCAA national wrestling champion Mark Munoz will battle BodogFight veteran Steve Steinbess. Also this week, three big WEC signings were reported by fiveouncesofpain.com. The site reported the signings of Jake Rosholt, Johny Hendricks and Shane Roller, three of the top wrestling prospects in NCAA Division 1 wrestling. Hendricks, as a wrestler at Oklahoma State, won nationals in 2005 and 2006; at the same school. Rosholt won nationals in 2003, 2005 and 2006. All three are expected to debut on Sept. 10 against opponents to be determined.

- Another card that fully took shape this week is UFC 89 on Oct. 18 from Birmingham, England, headlined by Michael Bisping v. Chris Leben. The new bouts are: Lyoto Machida v. Thiago Silva, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou v. Luiz Cane, Chris Lytle v. Paul Taylor, Shane Carwin v. Neil Wain and Akihiro Gono v. Dan Hardy. Also, Sam Stout will meet Terry Etim, not Paul Kelly as originally reported, on the show. A welterweight clash between Thiago Alves and Diego Sanchez will not take place on the show as originally planned, according to The Wrestling Observer. Another reported UFC bout, Thomasz Drwal v. Andre Gusmao, set for UFC 87 on Aug. 9, will actually be Gusmao v. Razak Al-Hassan. In other upcoming UFC notes, The Chicago Sun Times reported that the company will premiere in the Windy City on Oct. 25 with UFC 90, which takes place the weekend after UFC 89. One of the two cards is expected to be a free TV event instead of a pay-per-view. In a miscellaneous matchmaking notes, The Fight Network reported Mark Hunt will face. Alistair Overeem at Dream 5 set for this weekend in Osaka, Japan, a card that will also feature the finals of a lightweight tournament.

-  Phil Baroni picked up his first win at welterweight at Cage Rage 27 "Step Up" on July 12 in London, knocking out Scott Jansen with a crushing right hook. Baroni, who took a headbutt from Jensen's brother in the post-fight fervor, declared 170 his true weight class and called for the next challenge in Cage Rage, which recently signed a new television deal with the male-oriented Nuts TV station in the U.K. after losing its previous slot. The Baroni fight headlined the first Cage Rage card on the channel. Also picking up wins in Wembley Arena were heavyweights Neil Grove and Mustapha Al-Turk. In another notable fight out of the U.K. this week, Paul Daley returned to MMA after making a false-alarm retirement announcement earlier this year, knocking out Bojan Kosednar in the first round on a Cage Warriors card in Nottingham.

QUOTEWORTHY

 "I ain't gonna lie. For one week, I could barely sleep (from) that fight. I was in Vegas, I came back to Vegas . . . I couldn't eat. I was getting kind of depressed. But I'm going to tell the fans something. That was the best thing that ever happened to me . . . You guys are going to see a brand new Rampage. I promise you. You guys are going to see a brand new Rampage. But you’re gonna love him, though. You're going to love the new Rampage because God made him. God trained me" -- Jackson talking about the Griffin fight to Throwdown TV in the days before his arrest after a high-speed car chase.

“I like him personally as a friend. I respect and love him as a fighter. It’s a tough situation. It made no sense to me. I didn’t understand it until I got out there yesterday. It makes more sense to me now and I understand it more and we’re going to get it figured it out” – UFC President Dana White on Jackson to The Boston Herald.

"My striking is much more refined. If I've gotta take three strikes to one, then I'll take his 30 to land my 10" -- James Irvin to Sherdog.com about his opponent Saturday, Anderson Silva.

"I want to put on history making fights. Whether that fight is at 205, 185 or 200, it doesn't make a difference. I just want to make sure that when I go out there, it's not just a fight, but an event” – Anderson Silva to The New York Post.

"I've been to a couple meetings here and there. I'm definitely not an alcoholic or anything like that. So I went to check it out to see what it's all about . . . I think it got blown up a bit. I think I got a little out of control at times, definitely. But the whole 'Jesse being the drunk guy' thing is definitely not true" -- Jesse Taylor to fiveouncesofpain.com.

"[White] used to wear our clothes, he used to wear our T-shirts. Anybody who knows us, anybody who knows this line, knows we're not a T-shirt company. We are a clothing company. We manufacture denim. We do sandals, board shorts, hoodies -- everything you can think of. But, apparently (to White), we're a T-shirt company. Where does that (come) from? I think it's just business. I completely understand. Business is business, and he's protecting his" -- Affliction VP Tom Atencio to TAGG Radio on Dana White's trash talking of the company’s first live event on Saturday night.

"I see them as a smaller league that's trying to get up off the ground. They're going to blow way too much money doing it, and they won't be around much longer” – Dana White to the Los Angeles Times about Affliction.

"We have Fedor, the Russian . . . His thing is inflicting death on people" -- Donald Trump talking Affliction on Howard Stern's radio show. 

“I go to my Myspace every day and there’s 20 messages saying, ‘we want you to beat this guy, we’re behind you, you’re going to beat him.’ Everybody thinks I’m going to beat him” – Tim Sylvia to The Fight Network about Saturday’s fight with Fedor Emelianenko.

"When we went to fight, I remember, we had in our city this huge conflict. And we fought one inner-city suburb against another. We gathered, something like a thousand of us, and we fought against their thousand. We gathered on one huge, abandoned-building site, picked up sticks, basically anything that came to hand, rocks, and started fighting" -- Alexander Emelianenko recounting his teenage years in Russia to Sherdog.com.

"They put on two-ounce gloves and exchange punches for a few seconds, then fall onto the mat while one guy tries to put a strangle hold on the other guy. There's no art to it, no strategy . . . There's nothing like a good fight. I love the sport. It just breaks my heart that the next generation of boxing fans would rather watch this martial-arts garbage" -- 80-year-old Stan Naccarato to The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., after he was dropped as the local circuit's boxing ring announcer, a spot he'd had since 1947.

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NEXT WEEK

- More big-time fight results and fallout than fans have ever had to process in one week, as Ultimate Fight Night, Affliction and Dream 5 all go down this weekend.