Current UFC Division that can rival any Pride Grand Prix

Which division in the UFC right now can hold an 8-man tournament that can beat any Pride GP, as far as lineup is concerned?

 

Weidman vs Bisping
Jacare vs Machida
Rockhold vs Henderson
Romero vs Belfort

 

LW:
Khabib
Ferguson
MJ
Cerrone
Pettis
Alvarez

Then I'd throw a couple wildcards in there like Johnny Case, Rashid Magomedov or Paul Felder

 

RDA, Pettis, Cerrone, Alvarez, Khabib, Ferguson, Dariush, Johnson, Barboza, Henderson (if he still fights at lw).

Plenty of great matchups could be made from lw (since it has the most depth), also there are a lot of prospects and guys that can break into the top 15 if they aren't there already

OAM, gilbert burns, chiesa, duffy, felder, iaquinta, rashid magomedov, islam makhachev,poirier, mairbek taisumov, etc, etc.

 

I think most divisions would beat or compete with the pride Grand Prix.

 

Aldo
McGregor
Mendes
Edgar
Holloway
have Faber and Barao move up
Pettis move down

it's a tournament, anyone that can make the weight should be allowed to join

 

Any division can do an 8-man or 16-man GP that would rival PRIDE. That's why it pisses me off that they just don't do it. If the commissions won't sanction the semis and final in one night, just do one round per event. If fighters get injured, and we end up with a few questions and asterisks, let it be. I just want to fill out BRACKETS!!!

 

Considering that the UFC has about 95% of the top fighters in every weightclass, it would be possible in any division.

 

WBW is a UFC division.

 

People always long for the tournament structure to come back, but remember what a mess the Strikeforce HW grand prix was?

 

I never get it either. Match making creates the winner more than anything and guys get hurt and subs come in. It's a terrible format.

 

Name value? HW easy. Werdum, Cain, JDS, Reem, Barnett, Stipe, Nelson, and let's assume Fedor.

Talent/skill? Any of them. That shit was like 10 years ago. MMA is better now.

 

Yup, it's generally a bad idea.

I'm an old school guy, and I remember the original UFC's being exciting with the single-night tournaments, but they were deeply flawed and ultimately not a good format. No one watching UFC 3 thought that Steve Jennum was the best fighter or the real champion.

Even spreading out the tournaments across multiple events leads to problems. The structure forces match-ups that sometimes don't make sense, even when everything runs smoothly. Throw injuries and other unforeseen complications into the equation, and tournaments frequently get FUBAR'ed.

It's best to just stick to fully flexible match-making.

 

Because it's stupid, what's the point of a tournament if you can't do it in one night? If you have to spread it out over multiple events, it loses it's marketing hype fairly early on, unless those events take place inside of a really short period, like 6 weeks, which is unlikely to be done. The tournaments that strikeforce used to do, the women's bantamweight and men's heavyweight, were watered down and/or took way too long to complete.

 

I like your idea, but I would like to switch up these match ups.

Weidman vs Rockhold
Bisping vs Machida
Henderson vs Belfort
Jacare vs Romero

I know two of these matches are already planned. I just feel like Bisping vs Machida
Henderson vs Belfort match up really well.

 

Pride Critical Countdown 2005 was just unbelievable, and i think that only Jon Jones would have a real chance of getting the Pride Gold.

so true still today...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MZNspoAUMA

 

Sure, it allows for odd upsets and Jennum was the exception more than the rule. I like the fighting spirit that tournaments display & represent. I could use a little more of that and less of fighters needing weeks and weeks of camp to train specifically to fight one guy whose style & tendencies have been analyzed to death. In short, I welcome a little more chaos to the sport.

 

The UFC had quite a lot to do with that failure btw.
Overeem got "injured", left the GP as champion, then was immediately signed by the UFC.

Hard to market a tournament when your champion just jumped to another promotion.

Most of the time Bellator tournaments go exactly as planned. Tournament format works just fine if you change a few rules to accommodate that format (elbows).