Free market capitalism is a lie. It doesn’t exist in America or in any other economy more sophisticated than a playground candy swap. One need look only as far as the Federal Reserve’s recent not-so-laissez-faire bailout of financial giant Bear Stearns to realize that even the so-called experts don’t fully understands how the market functions at its most complicated levels and that Uncle Sam isn’t above a little tampering in emergency situations.

There is however one general rule of thumb that holds true, at least for the entertainment industry: Competition is a good thing.

Budweiser is better for Coors, WWE was better for WCW and the UFC will be better for Affliction, if the clothing company can successfully negotiate the transition to MMA fight promoter. Just don’t tell that to Dana White.

The UFC has long taken a “kill ’em in their crib,” philosophy toward dealing with the competition, attempting to stomp on the throats of fledgling fight companies before they can even get their legs under them. You can’t blame them. For White and the Fertitta Brothers, a thriving and diverse marketplace would mean only that they would have to try harder, offer up a better product and – heaven forbid – pay fighters more for risking life and limb inside the cage.

The UFC therefore is perfectly happy as the only game in town and is willing to take fairly drastic measures to make sure it stays that way.

Enter Affliction, a company best known for putting one-color screen prints of dragons and skulls onto dime store T-shirts and selling them to 15 year-old kids for 60 bucks a pop. Apparently those kids are rolling in expendable income, because rumor is Affliction did something like $50 million in sales last year. Now the company is cross-promoting that success into its first mixed martial arts show, called “Affliction: Banned,” live from Los Angeles on pay per view this Saturday.

The card can only be described as stacked. It features a litany of UFC vets, but most notably offers one-time Pride heavyweight champ and consensus best fighter of all time Fedor Emelianenko facing former UFC heavyweight title holder Tim Sylvia as its main event.

It will be Fedor’s first real test in years; one against a big, capable opponent. Still, we all expect him to win, probably by arm bar, probably in the first or second round. Sylvia’s best chance may be to try to cut the Russian and force a TKO via doctor stoppage.

The one thing that may stand in the way of Fedor being as dominant in America as he was in Japan could be that he’s a bit of a bleeder. His only loss – some eight years ago – came on cuts to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. He was also badly cut early in the Matt Lindland fight, but finished quickly enough to avoid medical scrutiny. Sylvia can punch with the best, as he showed in his recent loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and that could be trouble if he manages some good shot to the scar tissue above Fedor's eyes. But Sylvia has also been dominated by a smaller, quicker heavyweight, as he was against Randy Couture last March, and that spells t.r.o.u.b.l.e. only for the Maine-iac.

Either way, it’s the most compelling heavyweight match up to come along in some time and the UFC knows it and the UFC is scared.

Why else would Zuffa panic and put middleweight champion Anderson Silva into a meaningless, one-off light heavyweight fight against the painfully mediocre James Irvin? That bout – which we would talk about, except it hardly seems worth it – will be on SpikeTV for free. It’s an obvious attempt to peel viewers off the Affliction show and it makes the UFC seem petty and cheap. And ruthless.

The company’s litigious nature and claustrophobic contract agreements with its own fighters are well documented. The UFC has always played hardball, so this latest move is less surprising than it is sadly typical. News broke this week that the company is on the verge of purchasing the ruins of the IFL and it likely has a similar demise planned for Affliction.

For our money though, if the UFC is going to control the largest stable of fighters in the world, yet somehow continue to put out lackluster PPV cards and even shittier cable shows, we think the industry needs all the competition it can get. That’s why we’re ordering Affliction, even though we’ll be live blogging the UFC event for another Web site.

And damn it, we think you should order Affliction too. If for no other reason than to show your love for dragons and skulls and crappy T-shirts.

And a free market.