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Report: PRIDE wants to run shows in Brazil

By Zach Arnold | November 27, 2006

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That’s the headline in Nikkan Sports today. The newspaper claims that PRIDE has received multiple offers from promoters to run events in Brazil, and given their roster of Brazilian talent, it is felt to be a natural business fit. The paper claims that the major issue facing PRIDE as far as running in Brazil is getting licensed to run shows in the country. The article also states that PRIDE is interested in running in Croatia.

Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

14 Responses to “Report: PRIDE wants to run shows in Brazil”

  1. JEFF from Fresno says:

    When the WWE start running international shows more often like recently in the last few years, it’s usually a strong indication of a “bear” domestic market. Would it be accurate to assume the same with PRIDE as they predict the future looks bleak for the gate at home? The logistics cost has to be sky-high considering what is put into live production. The UK is another untapped market they need to consider if they want to run shows internationally. Brazil is a smart place to run considering their Brazilian star-power they have on the roster and Crocop could sell-out their largest soccer stadium in Croatia.

  2. PizzaChef says:

    UK and Europe is somewhat of an untapped market but I THINK the major concern for them is to be able to use the….mmmmm only term I can think up of is the “traditional PRIDE rules” compared to the Las Vegas commission rules.

  3. BSP says:

    This is very exciting, if true. I’ve long wondered why they didn’t try this earlier — especially considering the help they gave for the last big Brazillian MMA show. The U.S. is an exploding market, but I think Brazil might be a better target — at least in the short run. Also, they could use their full rules in Brazil (given the tradition of vale tudo).

  4. The Gaijin says:

    The Silva-Liddell fight fell through in large part because Zuffa was unwilling to agree to a one-and-done deal for Silva. If he happened to beat Liddell, they wanted to retain him for defenses. (Never mind that PRIDE would be taking exactly the same risk if Liddell happened to beat Silva.)

    http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles.asp?n_id=6219

    Nice to see there’s actually someone willing to post the truth about why the fight fell through (just to clarify, NO this is not referenced to Zach at all, but to show the idiots saying Sakikabara/DSE/Chute Box/Silva was vetoing the fight.

    Dana just had no faith in Chuck…can’t say i blame him.

  5. herb says:

    Talent-wise Brazil is a great option, no doubt. The main problem I see is how to generate the desired revenue over there, since tickets and (local) PPV cannot cost more than 20 USD. Hopefully they will find a solution.

  6. BSP says:

    Another point: Shows held in Brazil need not be tape-delayed for U.S. broadcast. That might help a bit with PPV buyrates.

  7. ukiro says:

    BSP is spot on; why would you care about the geographic location of a PPV? They might need to fly a bunch of big US names down to attract purchases in the USA, but that’s true regardless of event location.

    The issue would be gate income, as herb said. But if they can sell out a football (soccer, for you yanks) stadium at $20 per seat, they could do just as well as with a 15.000 gate show in the US. Whether that is feasible/realistic is another matter though – I can’t quite make a call on that.

    A final bit of food for thought is that Pride might opt to run “smaller” (i.e.

  8. ukiro says:

    ok, somehow I got cut off there… is there a comment length limit? If so, it seems awful short.

    Anyway; what I was saying is that Pride might be going for a world tour with “smaller” events (i.e.

  9. ukiro says:

    ok whatever, I’m giving up, I’m not going to type that a third time. There’s a bug here that clips comments at the “less than” sign, possibly in some very poorly implemented attempt at blocking HTML. Have it transformed into & lt ; (sans the spaces) instead…

  10. Darren says:

    I think that would be a great thing for Brazilian fight fans. I am a little jealous. The group of Pride Fighters from Brazil range from champions and contenders to freak shows and oddities, so Pride would have a great range of options for both the freakshows and the quality matchups and squashes that we expect from pride.

    Wanderlei Silva, The Noguiera brothers, The Rua brothers, Ricardo Arona, Vitor Belfort (well i suppose his contender status is debatable these days), Paulo Filho, Daniel Acacio, Marcus Aurelio, Fabricio Werdum, Evangelista Santos, and many more marquee fighters than can mix up with other superstars. (Excuse any spelling errors)

    On the other end, you have some special attraction style fighters like Giant Silva, Zuluzihno, and maybe even make the ryan gracie vs wallid ismail dream matchup that all of us MMA old-heads have been clamoring for? Unless the pride matchmakers are “cheeken.”Ah, I can imagine the Wallid Promos already. Sure, it may be five years too late, but so is the Simpsons Movie, and I am still excited about it.

  11. Ommabudsman says:

    Gaijin, you and Jake Rossen are off base. Pride never offered up the middleweight belt at any point. It was not a unification match. Like all UFC contracted fighters, Dana expected to get Wanderlei for either a multi-fight deal or at least have a no-compete clause in the event he became champion. This is nothing new and Pride most likely agreed to the terms to even get UFC to the negotiation tables. Given the need for exposure in the US and fearing damage to its brand, Pride had more to lose. If Dana had no faith in his fighters, why did he send them over to Pride twice?! Dana White thought he was going to get Wanderlei under contract (regardless of whether or not he was representing Pride) and Pride wasn’t going to let that happen.

  12. Lynchman says:

    This reason the Silva/Liddell fell through was largely a financial one. Certain points were agreed to prior to the ppv announcement, only to have those points become issues. It had to do with revenue splits and Pride sharing costs.

    I have heard this from folks within Pride and the UFC.

  13. The Gaijin says:

    Fair ball…that has been the ONLY legitimate source to point out any information of what transpired in killing the deal outside of message boards and forums.

    Other than Liddell who did they send? Was Ricco a “UFC” fighter when he fought Nog. Let’s not forget these two points as well:
    1.) Liddell was the #3 LHW in the UFC @ the time they put him in the GP – so there was really nothing to lose and everything to gain by sending him over.
    2.) They offered up a fight b/w Silva and Cotoure and that was also backed out of – when PRIDE was easily at the top financially etc…so they really had nothing to gain from that set up and the UFC could have really took off with that “dream match up”

    Silva’s still being offered up to fight yet it doesnt seem to matter who’s the UFC’s top dog…but I’m sure there’s a lot more behind the scenes and financial wise dealings that weren’t able to be negotiated. And just to clarify – I wasn’t calling out Liddell (or Cotoure) for not fighting – I’m sure they’d take it in a second…but I do think Dana very protective of UFC “name” guys.

  14. Ommabudsman says:

    Gaijin, I find it hilarious that the White-haters all convieniently believe that White is trying to back out of the fight because of the “he got scared” excuse which makes White look stupid and unprofessional. Otherwise, all actual facts would indicate otherwise.

    Fact 1: Pride (or rather Wanderlei) got a lot of much needed publicity by “invading” the Octagon.

    Fact 2: White announced the fight on his own turf and said he expected a multi-fight contract in the press conference (which is the norm for nearly all fighters). Why would White announce this if he was scared?

    Fact 3: Pride has more to lose while it tries to establish its reputation here in the US. If the UFC is trying so hard to protect its poster boys, why did they put Hughes against all the best ww’s? Why did they put Silva up against Franklin? Even the most hardcore fans knew that Babalu was no push over for Chuck. The reality is even if Wanderlei beat Chuck six ways to Sunday, that would do little to effect the overall popularity of the UFC.

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