« Update on UFC DVDs | Home | Cage Gladiators 2 – ‘Next Generation’ Results »
PRIDE event in Saitama
By Zach Arnold | September 7, 2006
Time to get predictions from everyone on the Grand Prix tournament fights.
a) Josh Barnett vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira – pick a winner
b) Mirko Cro Cop vs. vanderlei Silva – pick a winner
c) winner of a vs. winner of b – your tournament winner?
Jeff Thaler commented on his site that the PRIDE 9/10 Saitama show eerily has little to no buzz. I completely agree with him 100%. As I commented on this week’s radio show, Barnett vs. Nogueira is a true dream fight in every sense of the word (a pure pick ’em fight if I ever saw one), and the reaction has been noticeably silent everywhere. You really have to wonder if there is a growing sense of apathy right now or not for this company. I don’t understand it in terms of the 9/10 Saitama event, which should end up being an excellent show.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’ll pick Silva over CroCop and Barnett over Nogueira. I want to see a fresh match-up, so I’m going Silva vs. Barnett in the final, with Barnett winning it all.
LoL. Yes zach so burned out that I bet the show does a sell out. But why dont you post the numbers before the show like you usually do?
You know where there extremely low, but still end up selling out?
This show will draw well, and will get plenty of buzz. The real test will be the buzz it gets aafter the show, when we see how many people watched, I bet the underground and sherdog will be flooded.
But thats a poor gauge anyway, as is whaledog or whatever that website is called.
We will see when the show sells out.
Yeah, no buzz….
Dream Stage Entertainment held an promotion event for September 10th’s Openweight Grand Prix finals today in the busy Shibuya area in Tokyo, Japan. The open promotional event was attended by the four Grand Prix semi-finalists: Wanderlei Silva, Antontio Rodrigo Nogueria, Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic and Josh Barnett.
The press conference was scheduled to be held outside of the trendy Shibuya 109, famous for many hip fashion stores. The area always attracts a wealth of people being called the the “Mecca of teenage fashion” in Tokyo. Accordingly, PRIDE’s promotional venture attracted many people too; too many people for the police.
Having attracted an much larger audience then expected, with an estimated 3000 people showing up to watch the promotion, the sidewalks quickly became clogged and as panic started to spread due to the tightly packed crowd. The police was forced to step in and stop the event, just after three minutes before the event had commenced, and before any of the fighters had have a chance to speak to the crowd.
http://completevaletudoaccess.blogspot.com/
What do you mean the show has no buzz. Are you retarded? Even in calling something a “show” (and not simply a card), one admits it’s somewhat magnetizing.
The guys at this website too much believe in their own narratives. I’m not saying stick to the facts, but come! on!
I’m not necessarily questioning the buzz as far as fans attending the show – as I noted on Puroresu Power, the show should easily draw 20,000-25,000 paid. The question is where is the buzz online and in the media for it? I would expected far more attention for Barnett vs. Nogueira than other matches. I don’t know how much the balance of media coverage has to do with the fact that there are no Japanese fighters left in the round of four (the Mirko vs. Yoshida fight on 7/1 got more heat than the top matches on this show).
As stated on the radio show, I said PRIDE would do fine in Saitama for this event. Even in a relatively positive post about the PRIDE show, there’s still heat for this thread.
I’m picking Crocop over Silva. Wanderlei hasn’t been the same fighter since his loss to Mark Hunt, he’s been less aggressive and half a step slower. He looked great against Fujita but Iron Chin is a B-level fighter at best and, I think, was an opponent made for Silva to look good against.
I’ll take Nog over Barnett. This is a fight that could go either way, it really could. My heart is rooting for Barnett, I think he’s great and also very fun to watch and I love that he’s dedicated himself and gotten into top shape instead of relying on natural skill. My head picks Nog though, he’s a legend in his prime and it’s hard to bet against him.
Crocop versus Nog in the finals and I’m picking…Crocop. He killed Nog the first fight until he was taken down and tapped. I see this fight as more of the same with the exception that Mirko has improved his submission defense enough to get back to his feet and start kicking again. Plus, I’d rather see Crocop VS Fedor a second time as opposed to Nog VS Fedor the fourth.
No matter who wins any of these fights, this is going to be a great card. Can’t wait for it.
I’m agreeing with Luke that Silva and Barnett will advance to the finals, and Barnett taking the OWGP Title.
Granted, CroCop is a more well rounded fighter than he was back when he fought Silva the first time, but he has also since not only lost much of his explosiveness, but also his mindset has changed considerably. Usually he was the one who pushed the pace, trying to go in for the kill, but now as soon as his opponent takes the lead and pushes the pace he seems to get thrown off track, and to become overly cautions. And i think Silva could be the man to really take advantage of this, rush on CroCop and make him retreat (and do his run) just like Fedor did, shoot in, take him down and beat the snot out of the croatian.
As for Nog vs Barnett – Barnett is without a doubt the most well rounded fighter apart from Fedor that Mino has faced. He’s big, he’s strong, packs quite a punch and is very good on the ground. I could really see Josh avoiding Nogs takedown attempts, picking him up and suplexing him, and then switching over to what he does best: gnp’ing Nog till his corner throws the towel.
The finals: I think Josh will just take it to the ground, mount Silva and submit him. Silva may be a BJJ black belt, but honestly, we’ve never seen him do too much on the ground to actually proof this, so Josh should have no problem to get the upper hand in this fight.
And compared to other GPs Pride has done, this show really has a lot less of a buzz surrounding it. Usually the media was filled with reports, previews etc, but this time it’s rather quiet on the mediafront. And as for the OWGP selling out: seriously, Pride always says that their shows sell out, but forget to mention that they paper the shows with huge amounts of comp tickets.