- One of the least reflective statements I’ve read anywhere this week. What do you call Tito Ortiz’ title run? It was pretty much a complete joke from start to finish. And what about Frank freaking Shamrock? Liddell cleaned out the UFC LHW division? Perhaps, and you could say the same for Franklin, but that doesn’t make them the unbeatable monsters they were portrayed as by the UFC(as was proven when they began facing elite competition), and if you’re going to judge all these “failing” PRIDE fighters off their first one or two fights in the UFC now, how come Liddell’s venture in PRIDE doesn’t ruin his legacy?

As for Arona and Aurelio, that whole immediate rematch because it went to the judges norm must be something you’ve imagined, because it sure isn’t being practiced anywhere on the big scene.

“Due to their styles (boring), they were not given the rubber matches right away”

- Right, and you base this on what exactly? Who are all these exciting challengers who lost close after a previous win and got a title rematch right away because they were exciting? Where’s this long list of happenings that leads credence to your assumption about Aurelio and Arona? As for Shogun never challenging Silva, that had nothing to do with the PRIDE Company Protect The Champion Policy – in fact PRIDE pretty much buried their own champion by putting him in GP’s and HW-fights – the complete opposite of smoke and mirrors(not that they didn’t protect him in earlier years).

- Even if they did cut Okami purely because of his “boring” fighting style(I really have no idea if they did or not), how in the bluest of hell do you explain Kerr, Randleman, Coleman, Misaki, Gono, Takimoto, Kikuta, Arona…? There’s no sign of any company policy of releasing boring/non-IPPON-fighters. Others have already pointed out the complete lack of logic in your Filho remarks. He likely would have had a shorter wait than, say, what certain UFC welterweights are looking at, but the bottom line is that we’ll never know, so your comments are groundless.

- You use the word “gift decisions” and also admit that “gift decision” fights were close. If a fight is close, there is no such thing as an obvious “gift decision”. This is pretty self explenatory. As for who to give the decisions to, I compared to K-1 and used the example of JP-talent because both PRIDE and K-1 have had a definite interest in seeing local talent succeed, yet one promotion has a far better record when it comes to judging said talent’s performances. It’s an example. Henderson was nowhere near being PRIDE’s poster boy. ONE fight comes to your mind? If they were systematically fixing his decisions we would have noticed it to a much larger degree with certain other fighters the company had a much larger interest in. As for certain judges favoring certain styles more than others – this happens everywhere and has little to nothing to do with match-fixing or point systems.

- “The UFC has never used smoke and mirrors for their champions.”

As for it being an all out brawl – it doesn’t HAVE to be, Vargas has the skill to outbox and beat him like Tito and DLH did…whether the ego allows him to or it turns into a Gatti-Ward like fight…thats another story.

For pure entertainment value – I vote latino cajones get the best of him and they have a pier-six, but that’s just me.

I just know that up here (Canada), its been getting a fair amount of play on the sports networks and it seems to be getting a big push in the boxing circles (Russ Amber in particular). They’re continually playing up what a blood feud this fight is going to be and whether he’s going to get drawn into a brawling war. I’m certain Don King et al are putting the similar push on for this fight.

But I bet they’d get nowhere near the buys they’re going to get without the ridiculous amount of theatrics at the pressers and weigh-ins and the constant call outs in the media. However, I completely agree that you couldn’t just take two middling unknown/only know to hardcores and generate the type of interest these guys are getting.

As for 45:
He has valid points, but I think he’s obviously somewhat biased and naive to think many of his talking points aren’t equally applicable to the UFC or any fight sport promotion.

Newsflash buddy, you dont have to hate on Pride and make up outrageous claims about the promotion in order to push and like UFC. You are actually making the UFC and its fans look bad. Coming from you, it just sounds pathetic. Stop being so desperate.

This will be a war and an exciting fight, but its far from determining the “best of the best”. The “circus sideshow” interest gets all of us at some point and I think I’m jumping on this runaway bandwagon to enjoy the ride.