« Sunday special report | Home | Purses or: How the fighters get paid »
UFC friendly to PRIDE
By Stephan | February 4, 2007
Ed. — The popular Game & MMA Japanese blog has picked up on Stephan’s Fight Opinion posting about UFC being friendly to PRIDE.
I knew this UFC 67 would be a turning moment for the UFC, I’ve even called it a “coming of ages”, which some people though was exagerated. I did exagerate though, as the booing has got to go tho! Anyways, we have heard rumours of the UFC buying PRIDE, we have heard Dana himself say that he is interested in buying PRIDE, but never I have seen a UFC show be so PRIDE friendly. You guys here are educated MMA fans, so I’d like to hear your opinions on this, as I like to say, this is fightopinion after all!
I am totally happy to see Mirko in the UFC, and I have a feeling that many more international fighters will come, but here are the points that really took me by surprise:
- Mirko coming out to the PRIDE theme and not to Duran Duran as he usually does. I was in total shock. The UFC must have approved of this, this would not have happened not such a long time ago.
- Joe Rogan actually mentioned the PRIDE organization. Is it me? I dont remember ever hearing the word “PRIDE” during a UFC show. They usually mention about fighters that fought in Japan, but no more. I thought mentioning the word PRIDE was actually taboo!
- In the same vein, Joe actually mentioned Fedor, Minotauro and I think also Josh Barnett (going from memory here) as the best heavyweights in the world. I also thought this was taboo, you were not allowed to mention better fighters in other organization, as the UFCs are supposed to have the top ones.
Am I the only taken aback by this? In the past (well since Zuffa has taken the UFC over from SAG I should specify), you would never hear about any other organizations. I am reading this as a sign of maturity for the UFC organization. Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Zach does not believe UFC would buy PRIDE, but the UFC is defintely more friendly towards it. I am aware of somebody else from America looking into buying PRIDE, but it is not confirmed yet, AFAIK.
What do you think? What do you read?
Topics: All Topics, MMA, PRIDE, Stephan Marceau, UFC | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“In the past (well since Zuffa has taken the UFC over from SAG I should specify), you would never hear about any other organizations.”
After Zuffa bought the UFC from SEG, you would indeed hear about other fighters, especially Pride and Shooto fighters. They would give the top five fighters in each weight class regardless of organization for every PPV in the early to mid 30s. I specifically remember them giving the top 5 HWT rankings before Randy fought Barnett at UFC 36, Nogueira was listed at #1.
Good catch, SEG, not SAG. In my defense, I really only restarted to watch UFC since 38 (I had watched roughly from 1-17 or so, then it really wasnt available in Canada), and I dont remember PRIDE being mentioned if at all.
I guess I over analyzed,
“Whatever fires you up man, if its the pride theme, then go for it!” — Dana White
SOURCE :
http://www.570news.com/news/sports/article.jsp?content=s020429A
I think it shows that the UFC is so dominant in America, that they don’t really fear the competition anymore. The UFC IS MMA to the vast majority of fans. And to them, what does it matter if a few hardcore fans know about Pride. The majority of casual fans see Pride as the minor leagues to the UFC. Until you have stepped foot in the octagon, you haven’t made it.
And there is this general thought amongst hardcore fans that all of these fans are going to search the internet and try to find out the full history of Mirko & Rampage, only to become huge fans of Pride in the process. This is such a joke. Most fans just want to watch their UFC on SpikeTV and watch a monthly PPV. That is it. They aren’t going to start searching for Pride FC unless a fighter like Chuck Liddell switched companies and started fighting only for Pride.
I remember that Joe Rogan mentioned Pride and Fedor on UFC 44 after Tim Sylia knocked out Gan Magee. He said something like, “Bring on Fedor Emelianenko, Pride’s heavyweight champion!” (I watched it on DVD and laughed).
Rogan has ALWAYS talked about top PRIDE-fighters. And they were making huge efforts in avoiding mentioning PRIDE all night long, so if he said it once(I didn’t notice), it was a slip.
I agree that this event seemed to acknowledge PRIDE more than any other in the last year or two, if the Vanderlei/Chuck ghost fight is seen as an exception. But the explanation seems simple to me: this is the first UFC event which has featured top talent that worked for PRIDE not long ago. By acknowledging that CroCop, Rampage and A. Silva had fought previously in world class MMA, they may pump up their competitors a bit, but the goal is to pump up their own talent.
…That all being said, I suspect PRIDE and the UFC already have some kind of deal at least tentatively in place. By accepting PRIDE as the “other” world MMA brand and partnering with them, they can legitimately crown undisputed world champions, attempt to box out the upstart competition, and possibly have PRIDE serve as a liason for the UFC brand in Japan.
Pride has been acknowledged several times in recent memory. Back around UFC 45 or so Dana had Sakakibara on and he said Fujita and Sakuraba were coming to UFC. At Couture/Belfort III they showed Silva in the audience with his belt, said who he was and he and Couture took pictures together in the Octagon. Then they did the Pro Wrestling face off between Chuck and Silva. Sakakibara also attends nearly every UFC and has had extensive talks with Dana. It used to seem as if they were working together (even though they may not have been) when they ran PPVs on alternating months, before the UFC started doing 12 PPVs per year.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see them work something out and do a cross promoted event or two. Especially if Bodog starts to attract fans and/or K-1 tries to step it up with the Heroes shows. But if Pride is serious about establishing a major presence in the U.S. it doesn’t make much sense for UFC to help them out.
Rogan said Fedor and Nog were the best of the best.
I was shocked when he was listing people who Mirko has defeated he didnt mention former UFC champions, Barnett, Coleman, or Randleman.
Idiots!…nobody noticed that they started using DSE/Pride footage… DUH!! There was obviously a major shift in relations between the 2 companies in recent weeks..Thus the DSE footage.
But I guess that doesnt fit into the “Pride is Dead” motif that seems to permeate this place.
Nothing to do all day except over analyse every breath, utterance and fart that the fighters/promoters generate, and you still don’t see the bleeding obvious…
I know what it is, you are all sad pro wrasslin fans who need a friggin storyline…There isnt one scripted, so you try to read one into the business side of things. BORING!
Get a life. Get a girlfriend. Do some training yourself. Watch and enjoy the fights. Don’t waste your life talking about the details of others’ business. A sport is a sport no matter how great it is. Don’t be obsessive kids!
I have never seen a comment on this page that even remotely sounds like it comes from a fighter, promoter or insider. Fanboy Circle-Jerk. That should be the name of this page.
Only difference is that Pride doesn’t own the rights to the music but a publisher (like Warner Tamerlane), and last i checked DSE wasn’t one, so no big problem getting it (even Pride itself uses common music, their “intermission song” is the old WCW Nitro theme). It was most probably a case of the UFC brass deeming Duran Duran a bit… umm, unsuitable for nowadays audience (though one could wonder why Lutter came out to Frankie goes to Hollywood), and allowing CroCop to use the Pride theme instead (since noone but the hardcore fans know it). I bet he’ll have another theme the next time, probably tailor made like Arlovskis (wouldn’t surprise me if he’ll get one from Hatebreed/Icepick, since Jamey Jasta’s a huge fan of the sport and his personal trainer is a pro-fighter under Renzo Gracie).
And them using the footage isn’t too big of a deal either. First off, it’s not exactly the best footage they could’ve gotten from them, just some stuff of Mirko vs Herring, and some “tame” footage from the Wandy fight plus a few quick shots of other fights. Not exactly a highlight reel of knockouts, not even of lower tier guys like Magomedov, Oyama or Waterman. If they were on friendlier terms they’d surely have given them a bit better stuff. My guess why they got the footage is simple: money rules the world, and if the price is right they’d give it to them. Given their financial situation a few 100k would surely do it.
And as for the pathetic troll at the end of the thread: Got a life. Got a wife. Been training for the last 25 years in Judo and wrestling, 10 years in Sambo, 12 years in boxing, and 2 years now in BJJ, and have been competing on the tournament circuit and on an amateur level. And i see no shame in admitting that i’m still a “sad pro wrasslin fan”, hell, i even did it for a few years.
So, if this is a fanboy circle jerk i’m glad to be a part of it. Definetely better than being you…
Frankly, I love how you start your post with some speculation, then chastise everyone else here for… well, speculating!
The DSE footage being shown at UFC shows doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship has gotten closer. UFC may have simply licensed the footage they wanted. If you weren’t in such a rush to play Holier Than Thou, you might’ve considered that!