The one real rule in MMA is this: at any point a fighter can be beaten, nobody is immune from defeat. That is the nature of the fight game; always has been, always will be.
Pride is dead. Truer words haven’t been spoken in the MMA community. However, this isn’t a new thing. The above words were true after Pride 34 back in April. At that time the Fertitta brothers had already bought Pride and under Zuffa basically assured people that there would be no more Pride shows and that those from Pride either had to come to octagon or seek their fortunes elsewhere. Some have gone elsewhere (Fedor’s only fight of ’07 was in Bodog) while others have chosen a different path going into coaching for the up-and-coming IFL, and some have ventured to the octagon. The results so far have been shocking.
The losses have been piling up for former Pride fighters causing UFC fans to give Pride fans what could be considered their comeuppance for years of looking down at them. With all these Pride guys losing to UFC guys in the octagon, UFC must be better right? Well, that isn’t necessarily the case and isn’t quite the way to look at it. For one thing, up until recent years Pride has been #1 in the MMA world in every faze of the game: presentation, quality of talent, attendance numbers, viewership, match quality, etc. From 2000-2005 this was simply fact, and I’m sure that a lot of die-hard UFC fans didn’t like this and had to bide their time. Another fact is that UFC has seen glory revisited in the past few years with better shows and numbers than previous years.
Merge these two facts together and it amazes me that people are still bitter on both sides in this meaningless war between forum users bitching and moaning almost like little kids about whose promotion is better. I’ve got news for you: nobody in MMA gives a f*ck about whether Pride or UFC is better, and they haven’t since the buyout. After that, any talk amongst fans about Pride or UFC became meaningless because there was no Pride in the argument. Yeah, there are still “Pride fighters,†but if you notice, they’re only Pride fighters in UFC for their first fight—if that fight is a loss. If Noguiera beats Congo and faces Couture for the belt, Pride/UFC is probably all you’ll hear in the buildup; it’s baseless. Sadly, that’s how it’ll probably go for Gono, Arona, even Silva, and he’s been in the UFC before!
Still, since people are wondering about why Pride guys have been losing in the cage, it’s not as simple as UFC guys are better or Pride guys are overrated or the steroid issue. I can pinpoint why Pride guys have been losing in the cage, and why it shouldn’t come as a big shock to everyone. Hear me out:
1. The lack of the ten-minute opening round. This may seem like a copout to some, but the Nogueira/Herring fight is a perfect example. Had that fight had the ten-minute opening period, Nogueira—a decision fighter—would’ve had the time to wear down Herring and eventually submit him, something that very nearly happened anyway. With that ten-minute opener, fighters in Pride were allowed to stretch the pace and move a bit more methodically than they would be able to in the cage, take it out and the pace of the entire fight has changed.
2. Poor training. Shogun and Cro Cop were probably the worst offenders of this one as Cro Cop hasn’t even trained with the cage yet (STUPID!) and Shogun commented that his conditioning training wasn’t up to par, plus apparently Chute Box Academy has had problems with conditioning training in the past. If those reports can be validated, there ya go. On the topic of Shogun, getting married fairly soon to fight night was not a good idea in the least because you know that effected his training and preparation for the Griffin fight. If you don’t think so, then you’ve never had a wedding in your family. Anyway, the pace is simply faster in UFC than in Pride and if you don’t train for that change, your first time will be very, very ugly (with or without ligament damage).
3. The career path. If you look at what “Pride guys†have done good and what guys haven’t, a lot of that has to do with where in their careers they were when they entered the octagon. Heath Herring’s lackluster performances since returning to the octagon could be explained by the fact that Herring hasn’t fought much in the line of quality competition in recent years and his best days seem to have been gone by the time he punched out Nakao at Dynamite!! 2005. In Cro Cop’s case, his career reached its apex last year with his win in Pride’s Openweight tournament. If you listen to his post-fight interview, Cro Cop specifically stated that if he had lost that night, he would’ve retired. In other words, this was his career goal: to win a championship; yes it wasn’t the heavyweight title, but it was still the win that Cro Cop wanted and needed. In the case of Nogueira, he’s still relatively young, but more importantly is focused on a title. Nogueira really hasn’t gotten over losing Pride’s heavyweight title to Fedor in 2003 and since Pride’s dead the UFC heavyweight title is the closest thing to redemption that Minotauro will see.
4. The hype machine. This is the biggest one and it’s amazing that Pride gets blamed for this since this is entirely UFC’s fault. Think about this: a Pride fighter comes to UFC and his first fight is met with tremendous hype and fanfare because he had a great record in Pride and the name Pride is thrown out there about a billion times, then the Pride fighter loses and apparently its because Pride is overrated. The promotions aren’t fighting people, the fighters are fighting, and if a guy has a lot of hype attached to him then of course it’s going to be a shock, but you can’t blame a promotion for that in a sport where fighters can fight for basically any promotion they want to (should WFA be resurrected because Rampage beat Liddell?).
The case of Shogun was the one that prompted this article. I’m a Pride fan more than a UFC fan, I make no apologies for that, and that has nothing to do with my disgruntlement. My disgruntlement comes from the fact that mere hours after the loss, all over the Internet (Sherdog forums, I’m looking at you), the majority opinion is that Shogun is done. HE’S ONLY 25 PEOPLE! How can you count somebody out at the age of 25? Plus, where was this outcry after St. Pierre got whipped by Serra earlier this year? St. Pierre is basically the same age as Shogun (he’s six months older) and yet nobody seemed to think that he was done after a quicker loss via TKO no less. This is simply UFC people and anti-Pride people talking stupid. Hypothetically, what if Shogun were to turn things around (he is only 25) and, say, win his next five fights? What are these people going to say then? I think it’ll probably go something like this: well he lost to Griffin, but then he got better and bounced back. If that’s the case, then true MMA fans will know how stupid that sounds.
IN CONCLUSION…
Enough of this PRIDE/UFC bullshit.
I’m surprised so many UFC supporters are still on that when HERO’S has openly declared war on UFC with their motto in the U.S. being “Stop the UFC.†That seems to be a bit more of an act of war than Wanderlei Silva calling Chuck Liddell out in a Pride ring and it suddenly turning into a holy war. In UFC’s defense, they have done the smart thing by buying up a lot of Pride’s talent, something HERO’S would benefit greatly from with Barnett, Gomi, Fujita, Yoshida, Minowa, Mezger, and others still floating around. UFC apparently does have Mark Hunt under contract and are in endless negotiations with Fedor, which means they’re going at things right. In HERO’S case, bringing Masa Funaki and Rickson Gracie back for what will likely be one-night returns will pop a great New Year’s Eve rating, but in the long run, they need to become the next Pride talent-wise.
K-1 proved their stupidity by running the L.A. Coliseum as their first U.S. show and didn’t have a single T.V. ad for the show, thus guaranteeing failure. The ensuing attendance controversy is proof that Pride, not K-1, knew how to enter the U.S. right. UFC should however take note of this and think about returning to Japan. Most people don’t remember that in 2000, UFC ran a number of shows in small arenas in Japan. Considering their current popularity and ever-improving talent roster, I think they could take a chance and try to run a bigger building or two in Japan. Why not? What would they have to lose by doing this? HERO’s already made a bad first impression in the U.S., and considering UFC’s roster at this rate will look like a Pride/UFC hybrid within two years, I figure their worldwide expansion should spread all the way around the world.
Also, UFC should be trying to scoop up more talent because I’d be willing to put money on a UFC show today or even half a year from now doing a better paid and overall attendance (the two are different) than HERO’S by a wide margin.
If Dana White likes thinking big, those would be two ways of proving it.
