By Mark Vester

Besides being the co-promoter to Saturday's welterweight showdown between Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley, Golden Boy Promotions is also the co-promoter to the Affliction "Day of Reckoning" pay-per-view, which also takes place on Saturday night. Both events are taking place in California. The Affliction pay-per-view, headlined by heavyweights Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski, will clash at the Honda Center in Anaheim, while Margarito vs. Shane Mosley is about 30-miles away at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, a New York press conference that was hosted by Donald Trump at the Trump Tower in Manhattan, had the full support of Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya. At the presser, De La Hoya and his partners expressed their goal of becoming the main competitor to the UFC. Golden Boy and Affliction announced their partnership last September. The "Day of Reckoning" pay-per-view will be the first of four planned 2009 MMA pay-per-views that are being co-promoted by Affliction and Golden Boy.

Can Golden Boy and Affliction make an impact where so many others have failed? Other MMA promotions like EliteXC, IFL and Pride, failed to overtake the UFC. They not only failed, they all went out of business trying. De La Hoya believes that Golden Boy can win where the others have lost.

"Golden Boy got involved in MMA because who doesn’t want to part of this big event in the MMA world? In what we accomplished in this short amount of time in boxing, our intention is the same in the MMA world. The expertise in what we have, in what Affliction, Trump have, we can beat one of the premier promoters in the MMA world. A little competition doesn’t hurt," De La Hoya said.

Tom Atencio, Affliction's vice president, says the partnership with Golden Boy will present a real challenge to the MMA market that UFC and their president Dana White have held tight with an iron fist.

"The UFC, up until now, has been the only game in town. I hope to change that," said Atencio. "They're going to do what they have to do to make sure that they're the only game in town. With the organization that we have and the partners we have, I just don't see that happening."

While De La Hoya and Atencio believe they can win, MMA insiders are wondering if Affliction will be able to last until the end of the year.