Sherdog: What compelled you to take another fight right now?

Atencio: I have no clue. I’ve been wanting to [fight] since I did the first time [Atencio fought and won for Total Combat in January 2005], not that I have time now, but everybody’s willing to let me make the time, so I figured better now than never.

Sherdog: How are you finding the time to train for a fight and also get another Affliction event together?

Atencio: Good question. (Laughs.) I have a lot of help here. Tracy helps me. I got a lot of good people here. People are picking up the slack, for sure.

Sherdog: I’m going to play devil’s advocate. I’m going to be one of the people that might be asking, “Why are you spending all this extra time and energy training to fight, when you could be putting it into promoting the third Affliction show that everyone wants?”

Atencio: The third Affliction show is being put together right now, so I will give everybody what they want. It’s just one of those things that takes time. I always say this over and over and over again: This is only our third event. It’s not like we’ve done small events prior to our first one. It takes time to re-structure and figure everything out. Yeah, I understand the fans and people want us to continue, but when you’re new to it, you take your time because you want to get it right. You don’t want to make the same mistakes that I’ve made on the last two shows.

Sherdog: You are portrayed as the front man for Affliction, the one that makes it all go. Have any fighters voiced their concerns that your fighting right now might slow down them getting their contracted fights with Affliction? Have you had any opposition from the contracted fighters, many of which you are close with?

Atencio: No, I haven’t. Actually, it’s just the opposite. A lot of them are happy for me. It’s not like I’m fighting in my own event, so I’m not taking away a fight from anybody that fights for me. It’s actually just the opposite. I’ve been able to fortunately get some of the fighters on this show as well. I think most of the guys know I’m fair and I try to do what I can for them. If they need to fight, I understand that we’re not putting on shows every four months or whatever it is. We don’t have a schedule as of right now. We should have a schedule after this [next] one. So, I try to be fair and if they need to take a fight somewhere else because they need money I completely understand that and I allow them. The only thing I ask is they talk to me and it doesn’t conflict with something we have going on.