UFC buys Pride

Post by **BoB** » Tue March 27th, 2007, 2:12 pm

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2814235

The majority owners of Ultimate Fighting Championship have agreed to buy their biggest mixed martial arts rival, Pride Fighting Championships, in a deal that will establish megafights among the outfits' titleholders and possibly attract huge pay-per-view audiences.

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Tue March 27th, 2007, 5:00 pm

I wish UFC and Pride had some arrangement for fights instead of selling of one to the other, competition is always good esp. in this biz.

holly · Post by **holly** » Tue March 27th, 2007, 5:08 pm

I knew this would happen sooner or later, although I wouldn't have called Pride much of a competitor for UFC (here in the US, at least).
A lot of people who are very into MMA watch both anyway, for the love of the sport.
Hopefully this sets us up to see some sick fights.

Post by **BlazeTSU** » Tue March 27th, 2007, 6:22 pm

i'm pretty happy about it. i think competition is good too, but it really doesn't hurt for both companies to be owned by the same organization. they are keeping both the UFC and PRIDE separate but will have mixed cards and unifying title matches. it'll show who the best in the world really is and lets face it, the competition rests with the fighters in MMA.

The UFC has been struggling hard as far as competition goes so bringing in the PRIDE roster will really boast things quite a bit. gone are the days of one-sided title matches and countless rematches.

and PRIDE is much larger worldwide than the UFC is. the UFC has a hold on america..........but truth be told...we are the worst MMA fans on earth. this will be changed with the buying of PRIDE and america getting to see ALL the best in world fighting each other.

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Wed March 28th, 2007, 2:26 pm

PRIDE is much better I always thought then the worked-shoots UFC passes off as total shoots

Post by **BoB** » Wed March 28th, 2007, 10:41 pm

and PRIDE is much larger worldwide than the UFC is. the UFC has a hold on america..........but truth be told...we are the worst MMA fans on earth.

PRIDE is much better ... worked-shoots UFC passes off...

I agree with both statements and think that there's overlap. Americans like the worked shit and I don't think that giving Pride more exposure will help here. At least not the with the way that Pride is and it's likely that UFC may fuck it up by trying to make it more USA-palatable.

I've seen this with pro wrestling back in the late 90s when it was big in Japan, USA and Mexico. The fact that is was all worked made the culture differences more obvious. The Japanese and Mexicans approached it totally opposite of the Americans in two major ways:
1) the Japanese and Mexican fans appreciated the ring skills while the US fans latched onto characters.
2) the J/M works were formulated like this: wrestlers would have matches and feuds would result (ala Nascar). It came off as a sport even though it was worked. Think figure skating or similar sports - it's all worked but the athletes are recognized for how well they pull it off. In the US it's just the opposite where you have far-fetched characters that start a feud and it results in a match.

The fans were totally different. In Japan you'd see guys in business suits or groups of 'society mainstream' adults in attendance. They would applaud the wrestler's moves. In the US, spectacular moves were met with silence and swarms of redneck teenagers go ape-shit over an immobile steroid freak.

The American mainstream audience is different and they don't get it. People like yourselves are a minority I'm afraid and they already know both products. I hope Pride stays good and goes over well but I'm not holding my breath. Pride is already on ESPN and PPV. If UFC is going to recoup their investment, they'll probably tweak the product.

Post by **BlazeTSU** » Thu March 29th, 2007, 12:01 am

well, i'm not 100% sure but i think i heard the purchase price was a mere 65 million. thats basically pocket change for the UFC these days and i think that they will make their money back pretty quickly.

hopefully the only "tweaking" that will take place is cleaning up the matchmaking and nailing down fightcards months in advance instead of three days before the event.

i think the worked title matches will be a thing of the past now......hopefully. i mean, the UFC wasn't actually playing with a full deck. they've had the same 8 badasses stretched out across 5 different weight classes for the past 3 or 4 years. so they've had to basically put these missed matched title fights on with big media pushes making it out to be competitive. either that or countless rematches. they've added considerable "beef" to their talent pool by buying PRIDE.

i hope that my thoughts aren't just wishful thinking but we'll just have to wait and see.

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Thu March 29th, 2007, 2:22 pm

True enough Bob.. anyone going to the Backlash WWE PPV at Phillips?

Oh yeah, in Japan you're definately right, the wrasslin is pretty damned big over there, last I heard about 3'rd in comparison to baseball and sumo there.

TheKshatriya · Post by **TheKshatriya** » Fri March 30th, 2007, 4:35 pm

they should just have a match to the death with like 3 guys and there are no rules what so ever.

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Fri March 30th, 2007, 4:42 pm

That was basically the whole idea behind XPW haha

Death2all · Post by **Death2all** » Sat March 31st, 2007, 1:57 pm

Remember this guy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39b7v1wzfg

What the fuck is he talking about?

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Sun April 1st, 2007, 12:46 pm

Ahaha that guy was totally coked off his face half the time it seems like.

WRESTLEMANIA. TONIGHT. HAIR VS HAIR

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Sun April 1st, 2007, 12:55 pm

Always one of my favorites here..
http://www.wrestlinggonewrong.com/video/igw_sid2.html

Cheiron1 · Post by **Cheiron1** » Tue April 3rd, 2007, 11:04 am

Necro what do you mean by, "worked-shoots UFC passes off as total shoots?" Maybe some of the 'character' drama is scripted. But I don't think too much of it is. But maybe.

I haven't seen much Pride. I've watched UFC on SpikeTV, and IFC on the new Atlanta station. IFC is fairly entertaining. The team aspect is okay. Adds some excitement. I wonder if they should do itt like college wrestling though. With different points for the team ... based on different victory types. But I guess they don't want to say 'okay submissions are better than KOs.' And could probably just lead to further issues. But the IFC fights are quite entertaining. Though I don't feel like I'm watching best in class.

The 'problem' with UFC is that unless you have a striker versus striker match up, a lot of a round tends to be on the ground with little actual movements. Its just people trying to get a submission hold, or a few strikes here and there. Can get very slow and boring. Partly because these guys are going for submission holds that are very strength based. And when they are fighting strength versus strength, sooner or later the lactic acid builds up and they don't have much strength left for the rest of the fight.

necroodin · Post by **necroodin** » Tue April 3rd, 2007, 3:00 pm

I just mean sometimes the outcome is pre-arranged to some degree. About the striker vs striker thing youre right, it just goes into a grappling fest, some people I know really get into the grappling but its just not as exciting to me.

AtlantaMetal

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