it was more raw back then, for sure.
today it's more refined. the fighting is better, no question. the skillsets, the training, etc. it's all more athletic. weight classes, regulation etc have also helped made it so. and there are fewer single dimensional fighters, because most everyone is a 6 or better at each important technique.
also, no one knew what worked best yet. it took a few years to weed out techniques that everyone thought would work best in a fight, but actually didn't work best in a fight. that led to some very violent (e.g. fun and entertaining for us fans) results.
i can certainly appreciate why some would find the raw - but lower quality and less athletic - fighting more appealing.
but i can also appreciate why others like the more refined, higher quality fighting of today better.
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i think i liked the happy medium between the two extremes of about 2002 to 2007 best.
Although I bought a considerable number of PRIDE PPVs, as good as they were, there was something about the original UFC format with the tournament elimination style contest with an added Superfight was still my favorite of any of this NHB/MMA competition.
I have tremendous respect for Royce Gracie but his fighting style was not the style I found most exciting. The style I enjoyed most was the powerful, double-leg takedowns delivered with the force of a freight train by guys like Coleman, Kerr, Couture and Frye was my absolute favorite when it was followed by devastating ground and pound where knees to the ribs were legal. So I suppose (I'm not using fight finder of Wiki) my favorite era was mid to late 90s, especially in UFC, but also in PRIDE and after The UFC lost Coleman and Kerr, then PRIDE was favorite promotion of that era (I'm thinking very late 90s to mid 2000s).
Being American and knowing catch wrestling is the American martial art, that just adds some pride to the emotion I feel when I see that era of fighting. Of course there are always ex options to the rule and as much as I liked Coleman, Kerr, Fye, and Couture there were couple other guys I really liked to watch fight - Vitor Belfort and Tank Abbott. Vitor's hand speed was shockingly faster than that any of hissers and a thing of beauty to watch. Tank Abbott was not the most well rounded fighter, his cardio was sometimes mediocre at best, but he was fearless and brought an aura of danger to The Octagon with the awesome power he packed in a single punch. That was plenty of reason to cheer him already but in addition, he was by far the wittiest, funniest guy on The UFC roster when doing interviews or even guest color commentary. Tank had the gift of gab!
In PRIDE, in what I think was the early 2000s, I added a few new favorites to my list. ""Slampage" Jackson was entertaining in and out of the ring and his powerslams were things of awesomely destructive beauty to see. I was so happy when he finally beat Wanderlei Silva! I also thought Sakuraba was awesome, especially for his size and no wonder! He was trained by American catch wrestling legend Billy Robinson! I was in awe of CRo-Cop's finely tuned Terminator-like machine of a body. Even Fedor was a little chubby but Cro-Cop seemed to be such an efficient fighting machine with no extra fat and an awesome catch phrase - "Right leg hospital, Left Leg cemetery!"
Finally Bas Rutten was the best color commentator, light years beyond Rogan, and he was also no slouch at competing in the ring either. he's obviously a man with a tremendous amount of knowledge of different fighting techniques and appears to have reached a high level of proficiency in lots of them. He's also a guy who is a perfect example of someone with charisma and personality who can cut a good promo without needing to resort to "shit-talking." He's far too creative to just take Coonor McGregor's style of endlessly repeating "I don't give a F**K which was exactly what we heard in the build-up to the fights with Diaz.
