The Savage Truth: PRIDE Slips Foot in the Door
Greg Savage Oct 25, 2006
First off, it’s been a while since I have had the time or
inclination to write one of these things. I have been on what seems
like a never-ending road trip since the end of June.
But with a scheduled three-week lull in the Savage World Tour, I thought I should take a few minutes to jot down observations from this past weekend’s American PRIDE debut.
Let me start by saying I have never been that enamored with PRIDE.
Sure, I can see that they employ some of the best fighters in the
world and utilize a superior set of rules when compared to the
rules used here in North America, but I have always shied away
because of the circus atmosphere that has surrounded the
promotion.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that is what sells in Japan and I can respect the business model; it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
It was like going to see Nolan Ryan pitch, Wayne Gretzky play hockey or experiencing the “Showtime” Lakers with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar like I did when I was a kid. They were the best of their eras and it’s no different with Fedor.
He is a special fighter who has taken on all comers and beaten them all. How could anyone who follows this sport on a regular pass up a chance to see him perform live?
Well the answer to that question is: they can't!
The arena was chock full of hardcore MMA fans. And by that I mean the hardest of the hard. It was as if I had been inserted into a virtual reality Internet message board. These people knew their MMA. In a clear display of bitter resentment they took it upon themselves to boo the watered down Unified Rules and the entire Nevada State Athletic Commission.
It was a classic moment. There was NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer and the rest of the commission sitting ringside, about to get their moment in the sun. The camera panned in on each of them and the announcer rattled off the list of names, each one followed by a loud chorus of boos.
(It will be interesting to see if they go along with the PRIDE tradition of announcing all of the officials next February.)
Now I don’t want to say the crowd was anti-UFC, but an employee of Zuffa who was in attendance said it felt like if the crowd knew UFC staff were around, they would have been lynched. OK, maybe I am saying the crowd was anti-UFC.
All in all, it was a great experience. But I have a hard time seeing how PRIDE can compete here in North America with the juggernaut that is the UFC. Without an expanded television presence that will garner them the newer fans who have fueled Zuffa’s expansion, PRIDE will have a hard time drawing even a fraction of the pay-per-view buys that have swelled the coffers of the UFC.
"Its not that they don’t have the talent to compete; the problem is they are staring in the face of the dominant player in the market on their foes’ home turf and with their inferior television presence. It’s as if they are bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight. Add in the fact that the product has a distinct foreign taste and you can see why I fear they will have trouble picking the lock to the pay-per-view vault."
If you compare the audiences from PRIDE 32 and UFC 64 it’s a no-brainer on who are the more diligent fans. On average the PRIDE fans were much more knowledgeable and thankfully lacked the scores of “Get a room you homos!” guys that litter every UFC crowd.
On the other hand, Zuffa’s ability to bring in the less knowledgeable fans has been the key to their success. It will always be the masses that bring financial success and until PRIDE can figure out a way to get their message — that their fighters are the superior athletes in the fight game — to the public at large, their efforts will be for naught.
I for one hope they can figure things out and provide another outlet here in North America for fight fans. Competition is a big key to the long term health of the sport and the sooner they get their operation up and running at full steam the sooner we will see Zuffa forced to negotiate with them.
It may be a pipe dream at this point but until that happens or PRIDE ceases to be a player in the MMA market the fans will continue to be deprived of any true world champions.
Overall I gave the PRIDE show a solid B mainly due to the fact that I got to see the greatest fighter in the world: Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures). The production was great as well, but what it all boils down to is the fights and there were way to many mismatches for my taste.
I also don’t care for the fact that PRIDE seems to think there has to be an American in every fight. Officials from the company intimated that Wanderlei Silva (Pictures)’s opponent for February has to be an American. I don’t buy that.
I think the fans showed they are willing to support good fighters whether they are from this country or not. The fact that the Fedor, a Russian, was the overwhelming crowd favorite over American Coleman should have opened their eyes to this reality.
PRIDE pay more than it’s cracked up to be?
I have confirmed, through numerous sources, that the actual purses paid by PRIDE were much higher than the amounts reported by the NSAC.
My sources confirmed that more than one fighter was paid substantially more than what the official contract turned into the NSAC stated. It leads one to believe the purses were considerably augmented by PRIDE, much like Zuffa has been doing since at least the beginning of this year.
No more talk: Time for Shamrock to step up
Phil Baroni (Pictures), who returned to America with a submission victory over Japanese boxer Yosuke Nishijima (Pictures) last Saturday, has been the subject of a recent rumor involving Frank Shamrock (Pictures). Shamrock is claiming Baroni pulled out of their bout scheduled for Strikeforce’s December 8 card.
The truth is Baroni has been off the card since before the last Strikeforce event held on October 7. At that show I was told the fight was not going to happen due to Baroni’s PRIDE contract. Baroni himself told Jeff Sherwood and I that he would not have taken the fight in PRIDE if he was sure the Shamrock fight was going to happen. This was in the middle of September so it seems fair to assume Shamrock had not signed the contract at that time.
For Frank to come out and claim Baroni is ducking him is asinine. Phil Baroni (Pictures) is a lot of things, some good and some bad, but a coward he is not. The guy has stepped up and fought everyone and anyone put in front of him.
As for Frank, I hope he makes up his mind when it comes to fighting. He was an immense talent but he hasn’t had a meaningful fight in over seven years. The game has come a long way since then and it would be interesting to see how Shamrock stacks up against today’s best. He was the prototype for today’s well-rounded fighters. It would be nice to see if today’s models have come as far as we think. Perhaps Frank will indulge us.
As always, feel free to drop Savage a line at [email protected]. All comments and questions are welcome.
But with a scheduled three-week lull in the Savage World Tour, I thought I should take a few minutes to jot down observations from this past weekend’s American PRIDE debut.
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Don’t get me wrong, I know that is what sells in Japan and I can respect the business model; it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
With that said, I was seriously amped to experience my first live
PRIDE show. With the world’s best fighter (quite possibly the best
mixed martial artist of all-time) Fedor Emelianenko
(Pictures) gracing the card I had to
be there. Despite the fact he was facing an aging veteran in
Mark Coleman (Pictures), I just could not pass up the
opportunity to watch him fight.
It was like going to see Nolan Ryan pitch, Wayne Gretzky play hockey or experiencing the “Showtime” Lakers with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar like I did when I was a kid. They were the best of their eras and it’s no different with Fedor.
He is a special fighter who has taken on all comers and beaten them all. How could anyone who follows this sport on a regular pass up a chance to see him perform live?
Well the answer to that question is: they can't!
The arena was chock full of hardcore MMA fans. And by that I mean the hardest of the hard. It was as if I had been inserted into a virtual reality Internet message board. These people knew their MMA. In a clear display of bitter resentment they took it upon themselves to boo the watered down Unified Rules and the entire Nevada State Athletic Commission.
It was a classic moment. There was NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer and the rest of the commission sitting ringside, about to get their moment in the sun. The camera panned in on each of them and the announcer rattled off the list of names, each one followed by a loud chorus of boos.
(It will be interesting to see if they go along with the PRIDE tradition of announcing all of the officials next February.)
Now I don’t want to say the crowd was anti-UFC, but an employee of Zuffa who was in attendance said it felt like if the crowd knew UFC staff were around, they would have been lynched. OK, maybe I am saying the crowd was anti-UFC.
All in all, it was a great experience. But I have a hard time seeing how PRIDE can compete here in North America with the juggernaut that is the UFC. Without an expanded television presence that will garner them the newer fans who have fueled Zuffa’s expansion, PRIDE will have a hard time drawing even a fraction of the pay-per-view buys that have swelled the coffers of the UFC.
"Its not that they don’t have the talent to compete; the problem is they are staring in the face of the dominant player in the market on their foes’ home turf and with their inferior television presence. It’s as if they are bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight. Add in the fact that the product has a distinct foreign taste and you can see why I fear they will have trouble picking the lock to the pay-per-view vault."
If you compare the audiences from PRIDE 32 and UFC 64 it’s a no-brainer on who are the more diligent fans. On average the PRIDE fans were much more knowledgeable and thankfully lacked the scores of “Get a room you homos!” guys that litter every UFC crowd.
On the other hand, Zuffa’s ability to bring in the less knowledgeable fans has been the key to their success. It will always be the masses that bring financial success and until PRIDE can figure out a way to get their message — that their fighters are the superior athletes in the fight game — to the public at large, their efforts will be for naught.
I for one hope they can figure things out and provide another outlet here in North America for fight fans. Competition is a big key to the long term health of the sport and the sooner they get their operation up and running at full steam the sooner we will see Zuffa forced to negotiate with them.
It may be a pipe dream at this point but until that happens or PRIDE ceases to be a player in the MMA market the fans will continue to be deprived of any true world champions.
Overall I gave the PRIDE show a solid B mainly due to the fact that I got to see the greatest fighter in the world: Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures). The production was great as well, but what it all boils down to is the fights and there were way to many mismatches for my taste.
I also don’t care for the fact that PRIDE seems to think there has to be an American in every fight. Officials from the company intimated that Wanderlei Silva (Pictures)’s opponent for February has to be an American. I don’t buy that.
I think the fans showed they are willing to support good fighters whether they are from this country or not. The fact that the Fedor, a Russian, was the overwhelming crowd favorite over American Coleman should have opened their eyes to this reality.
PRIDE pay more than it’s cracked up to be?
I have confirmed, through numerous sources, that the actual purses paid by PRIDE were much higher than the amounts reported by the NSAC.
My sources confirmed that more than one fighter was paid substantially more than what the official contract turned into the NSAC stated. It leads one to believe the purses were considerably augmented by PRIDE, much like Zuffa has been doing since at least the beginning of this year.
No more talk: Time for Shamrock to step up
Phil Baroni (Pictures), who returned to America with a submission victory over Japanese boxer Yosuke Nishijima (Pictures) last Saturday, has been the subject of a recent rumor involving Frank Shamrock (Pictures). Shamrock is claiming Baroni pulled out of their bout scheduled for Strikeforce’s December 8 card.
The truth is Baroni has been off the card since before the last Strikeforce event held on October 7. At that show I was told the fight was not going to happen due to Baroni’s PRIDE contract. Baroni himself told Jeff Sherwood and I that he would not have taken the fight in PRIDE if he was sure the Shamrock fight was going to happen. This was in the middle of September so it seems fair to assume Shamrock had not signed the contract at that time.
For Frank to come out and claim Baroni is ducking him is asinine. Phil Baroni (Pictures) is a lot of things, some good and some bad, but a coward he is not. The guy has stepped up and fought everyone and anyone put in front of him.
As for Frank, I hope he makes up his mind when it comes to fighting. He was an immense talent but he hasn’t had a meaningful fight in over seven years. The game has come a long way since then and it would be interesting to see how Shamrock stacks up against today’s best. He was the prototype for today’s well-rounded fighters. It would be nice to see if today’s models have come as far as we think. Perhaps Frank will indulge us.
As always, feel free to drop Savage a line at [email protected]. All comments and questions are welcome.
