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« | Home | »

Dana White talks about PRIDE – again

By Zach Arnold | September 3, 2006

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By Zach Arnold

From an interview in the Chicago Sun-times:

Pride is coming to Vegas. How will that affect the UFC? Not at all. They’re having financial trouble. They lost their TV distribution in Japan. There are a lot of accusations they’re not good guys.

Could you guys merge? We could buy them.

I’m starting to find it fascinating that he is willing to play the “yakuza card” in the media about PRIDE now. He wasn’t saying this in July when the company had lost their Fuji TV deal, but he now suddenly starts throwing the “bad guy” label on PRIDE in the media now? Mr. White wasn’t labeling PRIDE “bad guys” in 2003 when he worked with them in the same year that their first President under the Dream Stage Entertainment banner (Naoto Morishita) was found dead in a Japanese hotel bathroom and suspicions were raised about that situation.

Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

16 Responses to “Dana White talks about PRIDE – again”

  1. Preach says:

    Well, he has been f*ed over and over again by Pride, so he’s probably come to the point where he’s seeing that nothing will ever come out of it, and therefore doesn’t feel the need to play nice anymore. But what i find interesting is, that he’s not putting down any of Pride’s fighters, most probably because he’s speculating on luring some of them over if Pride’s ship is sinking…

    He could be doing the exact opposite now to really put the hurt on Pride before their american debut. He (or someone like Chuck) could take a page out of Pride’s playbook of “Pro-Wrestling 101″ and start talking their fighters down. They could say that Wand’s a big pussy, as he backed out of a fight that everyone wanted to see, but that he’d literally shit his pants, after he entered the octagon, as he remembered how he was there beaten before (by Ortiz and Belfort, guys who Chuck beat). Just add a few clips of these two fights, and at least in the eyes of the casual fans Wand would be more or less finished.

    Same could be done for Pride’s american fighters, who they really need to get over in the american market, let’s face it, americans love to root for americans, and love a good dose of shittalking most Pride-fighters can’t deliver (since they don’t speak english, or only very poorly).

    Barnett? Just say that he was caught juicing, but contrary to Sylvia didn’t take his punishment and rather went to Japan and never cleaned up his act. Market his win over Couture as a fluke because of the roids, that’ll get the people riled up even more against him. How dare he do such a thing to Randy? Tell them that it’s been almost 4 years since then, and that he hasn’t even gotten back his fighters license in Nevada…

    Baroni? Market him as a UFC reject, show his losses against guys like Sell, Tanner (2x) and Lindland (2x). Tell them that he couldn’t make it, not even against a boring guy they didn’t want anymore (Lindland), so he took the easy way out and went to Japan.

    Randleman? Two words: Couture. Liddell. Lost to the biggest names in UFC history.

    Coleman? Highlight of Pete Williams Foot connecting with Marks noggin. Stick a fork in him, he’s done…

    Shogun? Try to get the rights for the footage from Shogun vs Sobral.”See, this guy was beat by Babalu, who was destroyed by Chuck in under 2 minutes!”

    Yeah, i know, the pride nuthuggers will probably say “D’uh, Pride could show how ‘Page beat Chuck”. Umm, they already did, and it didn’t do him any damage. Well, could be due to the fact that nobody watches Pride on FSN, but he’s just too big of a star, that he can even weather that “storm in a snowglobe”. And since Rampage doesn’t even work for them anymore they can’t even show him to the audience and say “He beat Chuck” (and i fully expect him to show up in the UFC till the end of the year anyways).

  2. sonestersambo says:

    one word: Fedor

  3. Preach says:

    As much as i love Fedor: i don’t think that he’ll play a very important role in Pride’s entrance to the american market. Yes, he’s a great fighter, but that’s not enough to make it in the US. Like i said before: americans want people who not only speak english, and therefore can do some shittalking or promos, but also characters. And let’s face it: Fedor’s not exactly blessed with the gift of the gab (not even in his native tongue) and has quite a bland persona. It’s the same with him as it is with all the boxing heavyweight champions from the former soviet union (Klitchko, Valuev etc). They may produce in the ring, but are quite lifeless characters, and absolutely pale in comparison to former champions such as (for example) Tyson, Ali or Lennox Lewis. The guys from russia could beat their next 10 opponents in the first round, and still they wouldn’t be draws like the aforementioned were.

    The only one they could really market to the US is CroCop. He may have a strong accent, but he’s able to hold his own in english, has a fighting style the audience will absolutely love, and he has a very fierce, bad-ass persona. And i’m not too sure if CroCop will be in Pride long enough to help them make it in the US…

  4. keith champagne says:

    Who cares?

    As a fan, I just want Pride to continue to produce great shows, whether it’s in America or Japan.

    As a fan, I want the UFC to produce great shows whether it’s in America or, coming up, in Europe.

    Sure, I’d love to see Chuck vs Wand just like everybody else…and it will happen someday not because of Pride/UFC politics but because both Chuck and Wanderlei are warriors and both want it to happen.

    Until then, I’m happy with the abundance of great fighters we get to watch in each organization. We’re in the early stages of the Golden Age…chill out and enjoy it!

  5. SamScaff says:

    UFC is not going to take the time to destroy each Pride fighter’s credibility, one by one. I’m sorry, its not happening.

    And I understand why White is talking shit about Pride. Makes sense to me.

    As far as Pride in America, so far theyre doing terrible. Their FSN shows are mediocre at best. Their FSN “live” show was the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever seen. Why they feel the need to edit the fights for graphic content when we’ve all seems some brutal, bloody gruesome UFC fights on spike, still baffles me. And Pride currently has the worst American announcing team that they have ever had…BY FAR. This is not a good time to be coming to the USA. I usually dont agree with Dana White, but Pride thinks theyre in for an easy road in America, and theyre not. The matchups announced so far for the event have not blown me away. I wish them all the luck because I think Pride is far and away higher quality than UFC. However, I love Pride rules and I dont look forward to them being butchered in America.

  6. cjfighter says:

    One thing being overlooked in this conversation is the fact that White mentioned the possibility of buying Pride. What does everyone think of that idea. If that happened IMO all of MMA would be known as Ultimate Fighting. It would be great to have all of the matchups and the great fighters on PPV’s every month, but all of those great fighters under the control of Dana White just doesn’t sound appealing to me at all.

  7. Ditch says:

    UFC buying PRIDE is an idle threat. Too much cost, not enough reward. Just ask Yukes what baggage can cost in the long haul.

  8. Zach Arnold says:

    Considering that Fuji TV produced a lot of the footage, I would be curious to know just what rights DSE has to the VTR collection, and if so, what they value the market for it being. They had rights to the UWF footage, that I know, so it would be interesting to see if the VTR would be worth it for buying the company (if you want to even call it a company, or a “front” for someone).

  9. Ivan Trembow says:

    Even though it’s true that Pride does indeed “talk a lot [about interpromotional matches] without doing anything about it,” the Sun-Times interview still didn’t address the fundamental question of how on earth a promoter could get into the ring and announce a mega-fight on live pay-per-view with nothing in the way of a signed contract from anyone.

  10. Preach says:

    It would only cost the UFC too much money in the long haul if they’d intend on keeping the promotion running. The best way for them would be to just buy Pride, keep the footage (if they even own the rights), cancel all fighter contracts they won’t use, shut it down for good, start promoting shows in Japan under the UFC banner. Just like McMahon did with WCW back in the days.

  11. LOOSE CANNON says:

    The problem with buying organizations is that the fighters YOU WANT will be disgusted and will leave for WFA or K-1 or wherever else they can go to seize some revenge against, in this case, the UFC.

    WWE bought WCW to get Sting, Lex Luger, Macho Man, Raven, the Outsiders, etc…and they got Benoit, Booker T and DDP. The rest of the wrestlers went to TNA. The same thing will happen if UFC buys Pride. They might get 2-3 of the guys, but the rest will leave to some other organization.

    It never works.

  12. Preach says:

    Well, the WCW buyout was a bit different. WWE just bought the company name, the tape library and a few contracts that were NOT guaranteed like those of Sting, Luger, Macho, Nash or Flair (Raven was already a part of WWf at that time, and Hall was a free agent they were not interested in. Benoit was also already in WWF). These wrestlers had huge contracts that guaranteed them shitloads of money for quite a few years, guaranteed Main Events and sometimes even Creative Control. So why should they buy these contracts and have these guys (who were known to be more or less troublemakers backstage, except Sting) destroy their own backstage morale? Mind you, they were all quite old, and didn’t exactly bring very much to the table. So they just waited till their contracts (which were transferred after the buyout to a newly founded subsidary of Turner) run out, and then offered them a WWF-contract under their rules and conditions.

    And i honestly don’t think that ANY of the fighters would be disgusted. They’re in the fightgame for two things, and two things only: money and glory. If they tell otherwise they’re just lying their ass off, plain and simple. If the UFC would buy Pride – where should they go? The only options would be K1/Heros and the UFC, no other promotion/s could pay what they can. And please don’t say WFA, i don’t think they’ll be around too long. Not everyone is as patient with his promotion as the Fertittas were with the UFC, if the WFA doesn’t bring in the green in the next 2 shows, Lappen and co. will most probably pull the plug. And what’s left then? The IFL? Strikeforce? KotC? RotR? WEC? They’re all more or less smalltime (even though Strikeforce did such a great livegate with its first show in Cali), and wouldn’t (and definetely couldn’t) pay the former Pride-fighters what they got in Pride. A few fighters would probably be picked up by K1/Heros (most notably the japanese ones they could use best, like Gomi and Yoshida), perhaps one or two gaijin’s like Fedor and Big Nog (because they need Heavyweights). But a guy like CroCop (who you most probably meant with being disgusted) and Hunt? They didn’t leave K1 on friendly terms, so they’d never get back in. What then? Fight in KotC for 5k in their Main Event at some indian reservation? Or go back to their original jobs, like working as a cop?

    Let’s face it, as long as they’re part of Pride they’ll always talk smack about the UFC or other organizations, but if it came to the point that Pride would get bought by Zuffa, or simply go bankrupt, they’d be singing an entirely different tune, just to get in their good graces and get another payday. Money changes opinions. Just ask Frank Trigg…

  13. Chuck says:

    I think Preach is right for the most part. I still do think a few of the PRIDE boys probably won’t go to UFC (who exactly, I don’t know. Maybe Randleman or any of the other former UFC guys. I could be horribly incorrect here…) but if these guys joined promotions like Strikeforce or IFL, they could probably help those feds to become good competition to UFC. And of course money changes everything. Just look at Terry Funk. Since most here are making pro wrestling analogies, so will I. The man for a better part of a decade and a half, has always said how the WWF/E and WCW are ruining wrestling, etc. And you know what? He has joined both feds a few times during the 90’s (and June for One Night Stand II for WWECW). Maybe Funk does actually hold those opinions, but the man does go against what he preaches.

  14. Godzirra says:

    “americans want people who not only speak english, and therefore can do some shittalking or promos”

    Yeah, Arlovski was great at that.

  15. Jamie says:

    I don’t see how Pride is having money problems. Every time I see a pride match there is like 100,000 people in a dome.
    I also don’t see how people say pride fighters don’t have any personalities.
    UFC fighters are a bunch of no names. The only ones that stand out are Matt Hughes, Chuck, Randy, Tito.

    Pride has Crocop, Fedor, Wanderli, Shogun, Randlemen, Jackson, Gomi,
    The Pride fighters are more exciting. When you watch a UFC payperview you get 2 good matches if you’re lucky.
    Did anyone catch the last Pride Payperveiw Critical Countdown? Every match was absolutely great!!!!
    Who can beat Fedor? Nobody from UFC and you all know it?
    Who in UFC can beat Crocop nobody in UFC.
    If UFC fans see pride I think they may like the Pride fighters better.

    I am both a Pride and UFC fan. I want both to do well and a merge is even fine for me. Pride is just so much better

  16. […] How do you feel about buying the PRIDE assets from individuals that were allegedly tied to organized crime (according to Shukan Gendai)? In an interview with The Chicago Sun-Times in 2006, you admitted that you heard about these accusations and said that they’re ‘not good guys’. […]

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