Back in early 2000s to mid 2000 I remember being very excited about Pride and watching all the youtube videos available. Even average fighters in Pride who never real real contenders I knew. I was looking at the next few UFC fights and quite a few names I dont recognize. Though now I have less time to watch MMA then before I feel there was a lot of buzz surrounding pride events. Was the internet buzz greater with pride that even regular fighters like Nakamura and Ze Sperry were known?
perhaps over saturation of UFC events and diluted cards leads to this however.. there have been a lot of big fights over the last few years that i've looked forward to immensely in the UFC, we still have a lot to come as well with the best divisions we've seen
You can't compare the level of excitement that Pride events drew to mere ufc cards. They specialized in the theatrical fireworks, masks, smoke and merged that magical mythical arena with real mixed martial arts fights. The lack of rules also promoted that aura of bloodsport that many people try to find when they watch movies in their house. Sorry Pride wins..by a fucking landslide.
less events......more stacked cards.........more fights per card........better match-making (good matches + can crushing). UFC match-making is getting worse all the time. UFC tries to create champions rather than simply promote who made it to the championship and won. They try to manipulate story-lines like the WWE more than PRIDE ever did and PRIDE had real links to pro-wrestling.
I was pumped up for a new Pride event for months. We'd all gather up to watch it, get drinks, food, wrestle on the floor, it was a religion. Wand, Cro Cop, Fedor, Nog, these guys were someone we all looked up to, they were bigger than life, almost mythical and unreal characters. Now I remain the only MMA fan and UFC events hardly excite me unless it's some of the legends fighting. These new kids just don't excite me.
Pride had less events, less fighters and the "big ones" fought in every event. That's why. To me the buzz is the same when a "big one" is going to fight. Of course you can't expect a Fuel card to have the same hype as an UFC 155 for example.
I thought so back in the day, mmafan.com and subfighter.com were the usual places I'd manage to find Pride fights. That being said UFC have put on some events recently that have really had me amped up. Pride back in the day for me though, much more of a buzz.
This too. Pride was just epic! It combined all the good things from pro-wrestling and MMA. And of course:
There was no fake forced drama in Pride, everything that happened was real and Pride allowed it. It wasn't like in the UFC where someone says a bad thing about someone and Dana fires that person's ass. Guys in Pride got into brawls after fights, talked shit to each other, attacked one another etc. It was all real and that is why it was so awesome! But, they also showed respect and appreciation. Frye vs Shamrock is the prime example. Two guys who genuinely hated each other and went to war for 25 minutes and just buried the hatchet because as Don said "You can't fight a man for 25 minutes and come out holding a grudge. If you do that then there's something wrong with you." UFC's fake forced drama is just laughable.
And over 5 years after Pride's death, there are still as many Pride fans as there are UFC fans. Pride never die.
Anytime something becomes mainstream, it tends to get watered down. Just look at the chopper craze. Back in the day, if you knew about OCC, West Coast Choppers, Indian Larry, etc. you were cool. Then they started getting popular and overexposed and everyone started wearing OCC t-shirts, and buying the toys. Same thing is happening with MMA. Back in the day, if you knew what Pride and the UFC were, you were in on something that hardly anybody knew about. Then the merchandise started coming and everyone started wearing Affliction and TapOut shirts. It became so bad there for a while that I thought Hummer H2s came with a TapOut sticker from the factory. I think a lot of older MMA fans hold on to Pride as a way to separate themselves from more mainstream fans. Plus, like was mentioned above, there were different rules in Pride and the fights seemed a lot more brutal.
It's my favorite vid ever. The guy who made it(Machinemen) makes the best MMA videos without a doubt.
The UFC has become a victim of it's own success. They are so popular and main stream they have to have more shows which leads to a watering down of events. They want to be seen as a real sport so they don't use the theatrical side anymore and they have put all their rivals out of business, when you have a big competitor it pushes you to keep your levels high. Pride had the theatrics, the fighters who were also characters who were portrayed as larger than life and also tournaments which were a huge deal, add in a little freak show and away you go. You weren't just watching a fight with Pride you were watching a spectacle. I think the UFC would have been better off keep WEC alive for the lighter weight classes, Strikeforce for the less stacked cards and womens fights, keeping the UFC PPV's strictly for the big shows.
I beg to differ. If you walk into any BW3 that is showing a UFC fight and ask the crowd about Pride, I'd bet that the majority of them have never seen a Pride fight.
Fewer cards, fewer weight classes, far away land, more underground. Greater buzz to a smaller universe of people.
I felt the same. Pride was awesome. But just to make it clear. "Early 2000s to mid 2000" ... youtube was launched in 2005. So there was definitely not a lot of watching on youtube. I say this because I remember how fucking hard it was to get proper footage from events back in the day. No comparison to now. In the early 2000s the mma market was probably 5% of what it is today. (except for sherdog. Every member has been watching since 1993 ...)
