Jeff Aronson insists that you’ll miss the best fight of 2014 if you don’t tune-in to the CBS Sports Network tonight.
“I think you may have the ‘fight of the year’ [Friday] night between Desmond Green and Steven Siler,” the Titan Fighting Championships chief executive officer tells Breitbart Sports. “You have two guys who literally can’t stand each other.”
Aronson calls nine-fight UFC veteran Siler a guy you have to “kill to get out of the cage.” He points out that Green, who had to cut locks from his copious dreads to make the 145-pound limit, just “annihilated” former WEC featherweight champion Miguel Torres in 46 seconds.
Fans find out tonight whether Green suffers from a Samson complex or if he makes Siler suffer for forcing him to drop part of a half pound through not the sauna but the scissors.
Big action, rather than big names, plays as the main ingredient in Titan FC’s success. “I’ve never referred to Titan as a feeder league,” the CEO explains. “It’s the ultimate fan and fighter appreciation league.”
But the sport’s appreciation, at least in terms of pay-per-view buys at the top level, endures a fallow period. Aronson points to Titan FC’s growth as a point of light. “I think that everybody is putting their heads down,” he maintains. “If you don’t put on the best shows possible and you dilute, people are going to tune out. Put on the best shows possible, and people will watch.”
Aronson believes he has such a show in tonight’s Lowell, Massachusetts, card, which also features Olympic judoka Rick Hawn against submission specialist Carlo Prater. And he’s naturally bullish on elite fighters, and corporations, flocking to the Titan FC banner.
“My phone is ringing off the hook,” he says in response to the UFC’s recent decision to institute a ban in 2015 on sponsors appearing on fighter gear. Theoretically, an influx of undercard UFC fighters denied separate sponsorship money through the promotion’s exclusive deal with Reebok might benefit Titan FC. But Aronson sees the Reebok deal as pushing sponsors rather than fighters his way.
“There are a lot of businesses that if they can’t advertise on a national platform, their business dwindles down dramatically,” he points out. “With Titan, we’re on CBS Sports. Besides UFC, we have the second or third biggest platform. A lot of companies are running in our direction to create their growth.”
Despite the success of Titan, Bellator, and the World Series of Fighting in securing cable-television deals, he believes the UFC reigns for now and the immediate future as the unchallenged industry leader. “UFC champion,” Aronson concedes, is the answer you hear when you query dojo warriors and gym rats with the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And Aronson has seen a former UFC champion fight on a Titan FC card. He thinks that viewers tuning-in to CBS Sports Network Friday night will see a future UFC champion in action.
“Should Desmond Green be able to impose his will on Steven Siler,” Titan’s honcho contends, “I think Desmond Green will be ranked as one of the top featherweights in the world.”
And if Green hadn’t chopped off a few feathers from his head to make weight Thursday night, he might not be a featherweight at all. The preliminary bouts from Tsongas Arena start at 7 p.m. Eastern on CBSSports.com and the main card commences at 9 p.m. on the CBS Sports Network. Breitbart Sports brings readers a live recap of the action Friday night.
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