On Saturday, fans of MMA will have a rare opportunity: They can watch the best fighter in the world on television without having to buy his bout on pay-per-view.

That fighter, the Ultimate Fighting Championship star Anderson Silva, will have a match on basic cable because the established UFC wants to deliver a knockout blow to the upstart Affliction MMA organization, which will show its first pay-per-view program that night.

At first glance, this looks like welcome news for consumers: Fans are accustomed to paying $50 to watch high-caliber fighters like Silva, and competition has led UFC to cut its prices. But none other than Donald Trump, who is promoting Affliction, says the head-to-head match-up between UFC and Affliction may portend something few fans want to see: a time when the sport's best athletes fight for separate organizations.
Trump called UFC's decision to go head-to-head with Affliction on Saturday night "not great for the sport," for the same reasons that the phrase "alphabet soup" has become synonymous with the decline of boxing: Different sanctioning bodies with names like W.B.C. and I.B.F. have kept the best boxers apart and led to confusion about the sport's true champions.

The rise of MMA has coincided with the decline of boxing, in large part because MMA has more clearly defined champions, and UFC President Dana White says his organization knows it can't follow the same path as boxing.

"When I built this company, I used boxing as the road map of what not to do," White told me in an interview this week. "I was able to take boxing's 100-year history, look at the things they did wrong, and not make the same mistakes. One of those mistakes is hooking up with sanctioning bodies. ... I don't need the W.B.C. or the I.B.F. to tell me which fights to put on."

MMA doesn't yet have boxing's alphabet soup problem because the UFC is the sport's gold standard, as even its competitors will attest. In addition to Silva, the UFC champions in most weight classes are generally recognized as the best in the world. UFC has intelligently marketed its stars and has helped up-and-coming fighters achieve name recognition through its Ultimate Fighter reality show. It has also been at the forefront of regulating the sport to make it safer and more palatable to casual observers.

UFC also bought some competitors, including Japan's Pride organization, which was once its chief rival, and World Extreme Cagefighting, which has become a showcase for smaller fighters, and something of a minor league.

"UFC is No. 1 without a doubt, there's no question about it," said Mike Afromowitz, the vice president of the smaller Strikeforce promotion. "They've done a phenomenal job of making the sport what it is today. If it weren't for them it wouldn't be so big. They took a risk and it paid off."

But after UFC, several other organizations are vying to be No. 2. Strikeforce was the first to garner a network television deal, teaming with NBC to show taped fights late at night. Soon after, EliteXC secured a deal with CBS to show fights in prime time. Affliction is putting its show on pay-per-view and therefore will reach fewer viewers, but its deep pockets have allowed it to sign several top fighters. Those organizations, plus smaller promotions in the United States and some in Japan and Europe, have created signs of the alphabet soup effect in MMA, particularly in the heavyweight division.

Saturday's Affliction show features Fedor Emelianenko, the Russian who is considered by many to be the world's best heavyweight. Emelianenko's opponent, Tim Sylvia, is widely regarded as one of the sport's top 10 heavyweights, as are Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett, both of whom will fight on Affliction's undercard.

Another of the world's top heavyweights, Randy Couture, cannot fight anyone right now because he's in a legal entanglement with the UFC And then there's EliteXC's Kimbo Slice, who is nowhere near as good a fighter as the top heavyweights, but who fought in the main event of the only MMA show to appear on network television in prime time, and is therefore probably the sport's most recognizable name with the public.

If all those heavyweights – plus UFC champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira – would fight one another, it would give MMA fans a series of great matches. But their various exclusive contracts mean many of the biggest potential heavyweight fights won't take place.

"When there are too many organizations, like there are now, it becomes a problem," Afromowitz said. "The sport becomes too watered down, too segmented, and the best fighters don't always fight each other."

The fighters themselves aren't complaining because they want the rival organizations to compete for their services.

"I think it's great for the sport," said Muhsin Corbbrey, who has fought for multiple organizations and is currently under contract to EliteXC. "Fighters have options on where they want to go, and it gives fighters a chance to be seen on TV. I think it can only be good for the sport and it's going to continue to grow our sport. So I think it's awesome."

But while it may be awesome for a fighter who can use a contract offer from one organization as leverage with another organization, it's less so for a fan who wants to see the best fighters face one another. In the heavyweight division of MMA, that's not possible.

White, however, says that while the sport's heavyweight division might look a little like boxing now, he's committed to steering his promotion clear of boxing's problems.

"The UFC will not fall into the boxing trap," White said. "I don't know what the rest of MMA is going to do, but the UFC will not."