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Just when you thought there was absolutely nowhere else to go beyond the towers, the TV show, and Tara Conner, the Trump empire is expanding once again. This time, the Donald & Co. have bought a portion of Affliction, the new mixed-martial-arts league, which will face off against Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in the realm of televised, no-holds-barred beatings. In case you didn’t know, this is the blood sport that John McCain once called “human cockfighting” — pretty little Miss USA it ain’t.
“Our family has always been into sports,” Don Jr., who is Executive Vice-President of Development and Acquisitions for the Trump organization, explains to us. “Granted, my dad wasn’t exactly the kind of dad who would take us outside and play catch.…I grew up watching boxing matches, mostly at the [Trump] properties in Atlantic City, and once mixed martial arts developed, I got really into that.” True to Trump form, the bottom line is never far from mind; he adds, “Plus, it’s a phenomenal growth sport.”
We’ll see this Saturday night, when Affliction airs its first pay-per-view fight card. “To the non-fighter, extreme fighting can appear to be excessively violent,” says Don Jr., who assures us the fighters are always in control. So in control that the Little Donald himself would consider jumping in the ring? “At best, I’d give myself fractions of a second with a real mixed-martial-arts fighter,” he laughed. “If I could do even that it would probably beat the oddsmakers’ expectations.” —Leanne Shear
