Comments on: Dana White admits that PRIDE is dead

By: Pride is Dead. Join me in mourning. « Martial Farts

Pride is Dead. Join me in mourning. « Martial Farts — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 02:46:48 +0000

[...] Pride is Dead. Join me in mourning. According to Zach Arnold over at Fight Opinion (and he speaks the truth), Pride is dead. [...]

By: FightOpinion.com - Your Global Connection to the Fight Industry.

FightOpinion.com - Your Global Connection to the Fight Industry. — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:39:10 +0000

[...] remember Dana White’s comments a couple of days ago when he said that the Japanese fans don’t want another MMA organization? I’m sure you [...]

By: liger05

liger05 — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:07:02 +0000

I think back to when zach was breaking the yakuza scandal and what the pride hardcore on sherdog would say about zach arnold. I do wonder how those people feel right now. even when zuffa bought pride and people would post that there will be no pride run shows and the deal doesn’t change anything those same crazy sherdoggers would go mad.

By: Zack

Zack — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:49:24 +0000

^^^ A brilliant man.

By: David

David — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:00:25 +0000

K-1 couldn’t do a show in Los Angeles for the life of them and UFC couldn’t pull off a PRIDE replica (a knock-off as the Japanese would take it) in Japan. Communication is a HUGE part of the fluidity of the world but people still refuse to take it slow and learn it.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:19:02 +0000

Not happy now. look, K-1 will prboably buy the UFC within the next few years so they can bolster Heros. i think its enevatable

By: JThue

JThue — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:31:00 +0000

In the Dana isn’t ALL Vince McMahon ALL the time depertment: Zuffa did not buy PRIDE to shut it down, and there was no one else on the door step that would have been able to keep PRIDE alive either. I was as big of a PRIDE-lover as anyone, but really, when looking at all the evidence, I feel Zuffa have done absolutely nada wrong here.

Everything from interviews with fighters and staff to comments from Dana and the Fertittas has shown that Zach Arnold(let’s give due when deserved here) was in fact spot on when he last year painted the picture of the yakuza scandal and Fuji problems potentially leading to the demise of PRIDE F.C. He even got the time table pretty much spot on. It WAS a big deal, and it DID kill the company. I was one of many who thought it was all being blown a bit out of proportion on this site, but that’s how wrong one can be I guess. PRIDE F.C. was a corporate tumor with some pretty make-up, and it would be nice to see the
“Zach is anti-PRIDE”-sayers step forward and show some humility right about now.

Of all the victims that came out of NYE 2003, the biggest one fell last. It’s sort of mind boggling to look back at those three events and realize that the biggest night in MMA history left such a devastating aftermath.

By: Fluyid

Fluyid — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:24:25 +0000

I just can’t wait for this quote to happen:

“I guarantee you that we’ll have Pride on HBO by the end of 2007.”

- Dana White

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:35:19 +0000

No need to over-analyze this. Did anyone think Dana was going to say: “I just bought PRIDE yesterday, but PRIDE is a disaster. Forget about ever seeing PRIDE again!”??? Of course he wasn’t going to say that at the time of the purchase. He wanted to keep the possibility afloat that PRIDE could be brought back to profitability. Zuffa mgmt. probably realized weeks after the acquisition that the PRIDE mess was too much to straighten out, but it was smart to let the public (on their own) get used to the idea of PRIDE never coming back. After a few months, with smart fans realizing the truth for themselves, Dana could finally admit what we’ve all known.

It really doesn’t matter. Most of the good PRIDE fighters have found a home in another org. Japan still has a ton of good MMA orgs, and the U.S. has EliteXC and Bodog as second-tier substitutes for competition to the UFC. Who the hell cares?

By: Jeremy (not that Jeremy)

Jeremy (not that Jeremy) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:02:41 +0000

I think that there was both a lot of naievite and some bad timing involved here.

In the early part of the year, Pride FC WAS the number one brand in Japan. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. There was evidence even then that all was not right, but I don’t think even Zach was predicting that Pride would go away permanently at that point.

As to Zuffa being stupid to think that they could get a Pride contract when they couldn’t get a UFC contract in Japan, that’s just a dumb statement. UFC doesn’t have a significant number of Japanese fighters and doesn’t have anywhere near the brand cachet that Pride did.

Zuffa wanted into that market, and they probably believed that the way to do it was to buy an existing strong brand name then use it to cross promote their primary brand (UFC) for instance as stated by using a “superbowl” series of crossbranded events.

Ultimately that may have lead to an actual brand merger, but I really don’t think that they intended to do away with the brand entirely from the get go. From this perspective, getting all of the contracts was not necessarily the biggest part of the deal. As long as you could hold on to some of the big names (something Zuffa has successfully done) and bring back other major names from Japanese MMA, you had a good shot at reviving the brand if you could get events done on a breakeven basis.

Zuffa had a nice handful of contracts for foreign fighters who had been working in Japan in their pockets before they finalized the Pride deal. Cro Cop, Rampage, Jens Pulver. You had other guys who would be perfect for Japan (Arlovski). You also had a good crew of guys fighting in Pride at the end that had previously worked for Zuffa that you probably could have brought back in (Baroni, Belfort, Barnett maybe) if you could patch things up with them.

Overly optimistic about their chances? Yeah.

Stupid? Not so much, in my opinion.