PRIDE Fighting Championship

From FightWiki

PRIDE Fighting Championships (PRIDE or PRIDE FC for short) was a mixed martial arts organization based in Japan. Its inaugural event was held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997. PRIDE held more than sixty mixed martial arts events. As formerly one of the most popular MMA organizations in the world, PRIDE broadcasted to about 40 countries worldwide. PRIDE also held the largest live MMA event audience record of over 70,000 people at the PRIDE and K-1 co-production, Shockwave/Dynamite, held in August 2002, as well as the audience record of over 67,450 people at the PRIDE Final Conflict 2003.

In March 2007, Dream Stage Entertainment sold PRIDE to Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, co-owners of Zuffa, which own rival promotion the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). While remaining legally separate entities with separate managements, the two promotions were to cooperate in a manner akin to the AFL-NFL merger. However, such an arrangement did not materialize, and in October 2007, PRIDE Worldwide's Japanese staff was laid off, marking the end of the organization as an active fight promoter. PRIDE for the longest time was conisdered the NFL of the mixed martial arts world and was known for always putting on the best fights with best fighters. Many UFC stars had competed in PRIDE with varied degrees of success such as:

• Mark Coleman
• Gary Goodridge
• Mark Kerr
• Royce Gracie
• Carlos Newton
• Ken Shamrock
• Murilo Bustamente
• Chuck Liddell
• Yves Edwards
• Dan Henderson
• Phil Baroni
• Ikushisa Minowa
• Josh Thompson

What made the PRIDE Fighting Championships the true world championship is that many orginizations from around the world sent fighters to PRIDE to find the true world champion. Among the list of PRIDE's feeder orginizations are

• Shooto
• DEEP
• King of the Cage
• Strikeforce
• Meca World Vale Tudo
• ZST

Many top lightweight fighters came from Shooto such as Tatsuya Kawagiri, Takanori Gomi and Mitsuhiro Ishida. DEEP had produced pride fighters like Ikuhisa Minowa, Dos Caras Jr. amoung others. King of the Cage for the longest time was considered the PRIDE FC of the United States as many PRIDE fighters went sent to KOTC to fight there top fighters such as Shungo Oyama, Alexander Otsuka, Guy Mezger, Ricco Rodriguez, and Daijiro Matsui.

Ring

Unlike the UFC and USA based orginizations, the PRIDE FC used a ring similar to that of a boxing ring except it had 5 ropes, not 4 or 3. The ring was better for MMA because it promoted a more viewer frindely image, allowed fans to see the action better and because of the ropes, there was alot less lay and pray, causing alot more action but also some restarts of the fighters i nthe same postion in the middle of the ring. Overall, the ring is better suited for MMA, althoguh it will always be a point of argument between fans.