Pride fixed fights?

HeavyHands20

Blue Belt
@Blue
Joined
Jan 2, 2008
Messages
928
Reaction score
0
I just watched the Mark Kerr documentary and it got my mind reminiscing and wondering. Pride had a reputation of having some fixed fights take place. Off the top, can anybody provide examples of confirmed fixed fights or fights that were speculated to be fixed?

In the documentary, there was a part that showed Kerr vs. Enson Inoue in the opening round of the Pride Grand Prix, and it appeared to me that Enson threw that fight. Looked really suspicious in the way he tried striking with Kerr, especially since Kerr was a phenomenal wrestler.

51mx0mnhyYL._SY445_.jpg
 
I just watched the Mark Kerr documentary and it got my mind reminiscing and wondering. Pride had a reputation of having some fixed fights take place. Off the top, can anybody provide examples of confirmed fixed fights or fights that were speculated to be fixed?

In the documentary, there was a part that showed Kerr vs. Enson Inoue in the opening round of the Pride Grand Prix, and it appeared to me that Enson threw that fight. Looked really suspicious in the way he tried striking with Kerr, especially since Kerr was a phenomenal wrestler.

51mx0mnhyYL._SY445_.jpg

Enson taking a dive against Kerr?

wonderful.gif
 
Early Pride fights had some fixed fights going on with the involvement of the Yakuza. In the the later years though Pride was legit with tough competition.
 
C'mon...Pride was great but it was run by the Yakuza...a well known criminal organization. Anyone who sincerely believes that the outcomes of, at least some of these fights, wasn't heavily influenced by forces who stood to make hundreds of millions based on the outcome, is either naive or full of shit.
 
There was no reason for Chad Mendes to look for guillotines when he was already on top, he could have LnP for the decisión. it was a trick to get the fight back up.
 
Pride had a ton of fights fixed especially for the popular fighters .. pride fan boys will cry and deny it but it's true
 
How about Matt Hughes and Jeremy Horn fixing a match at ADCC.

Most fight organizations have suspicious fights because there's no better bet in sports betting than having someone throwing a fight. The winner does not have to be in on it. Ali - Liston II, judging by Ali's reaction, he sensed that Liston's dive looked ridiculous.
 
I doubt it was Pride staff fixing fights. Likely some Japanese gangsters pressuring fighters to lose, and Pride just turned their head. That's the vibe I get from all the interviews on the subject I've read
 
I doubt it was Pride staff fixing fights. Likely some Japanese gangsters pressuring fighters to lose, and Pride just turned their head. That's the vibe I get from all the interviews on the subject I've read

I assume refs were in some cases pressured too. There were some calls that were highly suspicious.
 
PRIDE 1, Fight 1: Kazunari Murakami defeats John Dixson by first round fake punches to the chest/armbar, after a Ric Flair level Judo hip toss.
 
Takada vs Coleman and Lebanner first mma fight come to my mind
 
As someone above said there were some fixed fights in Pride's earlier days when the Yakuza was a lot more involved in their day to day operations. Coleman vs Takada comes to mind. By the early to mid 2000s Pride was legit and developed an incredible roster, of young, talented fighters who were in their prime and the fights were high octane and violent as fuck. You couldnt fix such fights because you could see the fight ending violence both fighters were unleashing. No way could some of those classic wars be fixed where both guys were kicking the shit out of each other.

Look at the fucking talent they had in 2003:


8552d00fa9b8a5aa33dc3c6a42c6d46a.png
 
PRIDE 1, Fight 1: Kazunari Murakami defeats John Dixson by first round fake punches to the chest/armbar, after a Ric Flair level Judo hip toss.
People quoting this one always makes me laugh.
 
Didn't Rampage say that Pride offered him a bonus if he lost to Sakuraba?
 
Rampage vs Chuck must have been fixed, they even had Dana commentating in the booth but Rampage clearly didn't get the message and neither did Chucks corner when they threw the towel in.
 
C'mon...Pride was great but it was run by the Yakuza...a well known criminal organization. Anyone who sincerely believes that the outcomes of, at least some of these fights, wasn't heavily influenced by forces who stood to make hundreds of millions based on the outcome, is either naive or full of shit.
I don't think you fully understand how the Yakuza works. They take advantage of businesses, but they're also semi-legitimate in many ways and thus aren't apt to just come in and fuck up a business doing blatant shit like that. The most blatant things they would do is schedule matchups on extremely short notice, change opponents shortly before a fight in order to tilt the fight in favor of a specific fighter, or they would offer more money if the fighter agreed to go for an all out brawl rather than a technical matchup, and by doing so they could, for example, make a grappler who was favored to win via grappling lose to strikes by paying them more to brawl. If they were straight up fixing fights they'd eventually start fucking up the odds and making the kayfabe too obvious which would turn off real MMA fans, thus making less money in the long run than they would doing it the way they did.

The fixed fights exaggeration comes from the early Pride events, when Pride didn't really know if it was a legit MMA competition or a gimmick by which pro wrestlers could have real, shoot matches and freak shows topped off with a few big names in MMA to lend an aura of legitimacy regardless of whether the pro wrestlers were actually shooting or not. Some early fights, notably Takada's wins, looked very suspicious and it seemed as if they were pro wrestling matches that were marketed as a shoot in order to gain more interest.

What I suspect happened is that they wanted to capitalize on the rise of MMA by bringing pro wrestlers into it and having them do "real fights" in order to get the best of both worlds; MMA and Puroresu fans. Whether the wrestlers worked the fights or not, the actual MMA fighters added legitimacy to it and fans of both would watch. I don't think they expected to get such elite fighters to sign, and when they did, it took over as the A-league for MMA and while they did have some gimmicks and shenanigans, they definitely weren't blatantly fixing fights. I mean, do people honestly think that a Japanese organization fixing fights would allow a national hero, Olympic gold medalist like Naoya Ogawa get absolutely wrecked?
 
Lol @ pride fixed fights

When ufc decisions
Ref saving fighters
Feeding champs Part time fighters

Ufc > pride in corruption
 
Back
Top