Fixed fights in MMA (video)

[ramair455]

I remember Rampage talking about Pride asking him to work a fight with Saku years ago when he 1st joined the UFC, but that's about it. Also, I remember an article interview with Fedor' coach saying Pride used to make sure the playing field wasn't always level.

He used the Crop Cop / Barnett fight as an example, saying Barnett had his opponent changed 2 weeks before that fight to Crop Cop, all the while Crop Cop had 2 months to train for Barnett...so Pride knew the match up 2 months prior and didn't tell Barnett until 2 weeks out.

 

[Coolidge]

The Giant Silva fight you are talking about was against another pro-wrestler. There are very few fights(that don't include Takada) where a legitimate MMA fighter(especially any that I mentioned) benefitted from a fix. Rampage's claims are ridiculous. He lost to Silva(both times) because he ate 20 unanswered clinch knees and he lost to Sakuraba because his grappling game wasn't on par.

Could there have been a bad standup? Sure, but bad standups/seperations happen all the time in the UFC. That's not a fix. I'm not even going to entertain his, "I was poisoned before the Sakuraba fight." claim.

Most conspiracy theories on these forums about great PRIDE fighters benefitting from fixes don't even make logical sense. Look at all the fighters I listed before. Why would a Japanese org, partly run by a Japanese crime family, and who's audience is 80-85% Japanese want to fix fights so that the majority of their top fighters are from America, Brazil, and eastern Europe? That makes absolutely no sense. The truth is, the VAST majority of the fights were real and all of the "meaningful" fights were legit.

People that don't except that, just don't want to except that the PRIDE "greats" were actually great.

The fact that they're both pro wrestlers doesn't mean anything. We were discussing Pride fights and whether there were fixes. Your post made it seem like Takada's were the only ones we know for a fact were illegitimate, which isn't true. 'That makes absolutely no sense...' It doesn't make sense to people that make the mistake of thinking the Japanese necessarily care about the nationality of their stars. Foreigners are actually very appealing to the Japanese audience, as evidenced by the success of guys like Bob Sapp. 'all of the meaningful fights were...' That's the inner Pride fanboy in you trying to reconcile the two images of Pride: the spawn of Japanese pro-wrestling culture that fixed fights vs the premier MMA league that supposedly had all of the greatest talent and matches. To say that Pride only fixed the fights that didn't matter is very convenient conjecture.

 

[Kuggk]

shamrock vs the guy silva kneed to death

 

[Papa Shaun]

Just think what beating Conner did for Nate, a guy that wasn't a Champ and couldn't get paid much my the UFC at all. That one win over Conner changed Everything for him. Now he's making way more than Five Mil. Got over that in his last fight. Now looking for 20 Mil. That's not even counting sponsors.. In a championship fight against Conner, Eddie would have made more than Nate. I just don't see it. Especially if Eddie truly believed he could win.

That's a good point...but......if Eddie had beaten Conor, the Conor money machine would have stopped right then and there. I don't think Conor would have ever gotten a LW Title rematch right away, if he lost that fight....and how could you have justified it, being that he had only beaten the #7 ranked LW by majority decision, with no other decisive victories in the division. He would have to go back to FW to fight Aldo for certain if he had lost. The next LW title fight would have been Tony Ferg. or Khabib, or Cerrone against Eddie, and none of those fights would bring in a huge crowd/payday as a headliner, like Conor has. The most money Eddie would make against Conor would be the fight he just had with Conor......unless....Conor lost, pulled off 2 dominating performances over top LW contenders, then hyped a rematch to avenge his loss....and that's only if Eddie could still manage to hold on to the belt in that time period. So if it's me.....and I'm offered a great sum under the table to "not be at my best" that night, I'm taking it, because it probably will be the most money I'll make out of the whole ordeal. Just don't think Eddie could have pulled in the viewers/money on his own as a headliner, if he had beaten Conor that night.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Put your hand with an MMA glove up to your temple, then ask a TKD champ or a pro kickboxer/MMA fighter to kick you there as hard as they can.

Let us know how you feel afterwards.

You should be fine since you're "blocking" it, right?

Record and post a video of it too.

I was just stating the similarity, I wasn't inferring anything negative about either cases.

 

[Matt M]

Wrong. The internet had made it 'public' before than. That may have been the first time good ole JR said it out loud, but we were all on the internet that night looked at news and rumors. We all knew it was staged.

Oh yeah I don't mean that. Obviously a large percentage of fans knew all about the scripting, backstage rows, read The Wrestling Observer newsletter etc.
But it was that night where everything changed and for the first time ever kayfabe was broken on television. Because they didn't really have much choice. I remember Jim Ross saying "this isn't a storyline" and that was that.
After that it soon became a regular occurence to see wrestlers out of character. Before that you would never ever have seen any pro-wrestler out of character, certainly not approved by the WWE anyway.

I was so into pro-wrestling back then. Used to get so excited about the shoot interviews.

 

[Chivas GDL]

When I watched conor vs Chad live I felt like Chad's guillotine attempts was only a trick to let Conor back up.

 

[Chain Saw]

I was just stating the similarity, I wasn't inferring anything negative about either cases.

I'm just saying its completely possible to KO someone through their hand with a kick...

Those fights could be fixed... At the end of the day who really knows... But if that's your reason to think that they're fixed its not a good one because its completely possible.

 

[Chain Saw]

When I watched conor vs Chad live I felt like Chad's guillotine attempts was only a trick to let Conor back up.

But what about the haymakers he was throwing at his face standing and huge elbows on the ground?

He could have easily caught him and knocked him out.

Plus no one expected Conor to have a good guillotine escape. He just pulled it out of his ass. And then he pulled off the same escape in the first Diaz fight too.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

I'm just saying its completely possible to KO someone through their hand with a kick...

Those fights could be fixed... At the end of the day who really knows... But if that's your reason to think that they're fixed its not a good one because its completely possible.

Right, I'm saying that Ishii/Prochazka is most likely not fixed because Munoz/Machida played out almost the exact same way and no one thought it was fixed.

 

[Chain Saw]

Right, I'm saying that Ishii/Prochazka is most likely not fixed because Munoz/Machida played out almost the exact same way and no one thought it was fixed.

I haven't seen Ishii/Prochazka, but the way a fight is finished doesn't prove whether its fixed or not.

A guy could get KTFO and have the fight still be fixed. All he has to do is stand there and let their opponent punch them on the jaw.

 

[Stevanchez]

The fact that they're both pro wrestlers doesn't mean anything. We were discussing Pride fights and whether there were fixes. Your post made it seem like Takada's were the only ones we know for a fact were illegitimate, which isn't true. 'That makes absolutely no sense...' It doesn't make sense to people that make the mistake of thinking the Japanese necessarily care about the nationality of their stars. Foreigners are actually very appealing to the Japanese audience, as evidenced by the success of guys like Bob Sapp. 'all of the meaningful fights were...' That's the inner Pride fanboy in you trying to reconcile the two images of Pride: the spawn of Japanese pro-wrestling culture that fixed fights vs the premier MMA league that supposedly had all of the greatest talent and matches. To say that Pride only fixed the fights that didn't matter is very convenient conjecture.

All the proven fixed fights and even the ones that people point to being "fishy", benefitted Japanese pro-wrestlers. The rest of the speculation is based on nothing, with no facts to back them.

Please, point to one specific, meaningful PRIDE fight involving any of the top PRIDE fighters that showed any signs of fixing(not bad decisions, they happen all the time, everywhere. Not just PRIDE). Or one fight in which the PRIDE fighters I've mentioned benefitted from a fix.

This has nothing to do with blind fanboism for PRIDE. Did I like PRIDE? Yes. But I also like the UFC. I like Bellator. I liked WEC, Strikeforce, and Affliction during their runs. I love everything MMA.

I am defending PRIDE because people use this idea of a very, very small amount of fixed fights to discredit the entire careers of great fighters. Some of the greatest mixed martial artists the sport has seen. Cause they can't except that for the first 15 years of its existance, the UFC was not the be all, end all of MMA and, in fact, played second fiddle to a superior org.

I am also able to seperate the spectacle of the sport from the great fighters. Just like I can seperate the Tank Abbotts, James Toneys, CM Punks(and the many other pro-wrestlers that have graced the octagon), from the great fighters at the top of the UFC.

 

[Ninjarobby]

I think roused v correia looks fake as fuck

 

[Coolidge]

All the proven fixed fights and even the ones that people point to being "fishy", benefitted Japanese pro-wrestlers. The rest of the speculation is based on nothing, with no facts to back them.

Please, point to one specific, meaningful PRIDE fight involving any of the top PRIDE fighters that showed any signs of fixing(not bad decisions, they happen all the time, everywhere. Not just PRIDE). Or one fight in which the PRIDE fighters I've mentioned benefitted from a fix.

This has nothing to do with blind fanboism for PRIDE. Did I like PRIDE? Yes. But I also like the UFC. I like Bellator. I liked WEC, Strikeforce, and Affliction during their runs. I love everything MMA.

I am defending PRIDE because people use this idea of a very, very small amount of fixed fights to discredit the entire careers of great fighters. Some of the greatest mixed martial artists the sport has seen. Cause they can't except that for the first 15 years of its existance, the UFC was not the be all, end all of MMA and, in fact, played second fiddle to a superior org.

I am also able to seperate the spectacle of the sport from the great fighters. Just like I can seperate the Tank Abbotts, James Toneys, CM Punks(and the many other pro-wrestlers that have graced the octagon), from the great fighters at the top of the UFC.

Actually, it's based on the same evidence used to state that Takada's fights were fixed. Again, Pride never acknowledged they were fixed fights. Neither did Takada. We believe his fight with Mark Coleman was fake because Coleman essentially admitted it and because the action looked fake. The suspected fixed fights that Rampage was a part of meet this standard. Both Gary Goodridge and Rampage (among other fighters) have come out and said Pride fixed fights. You've dismissed Rampage as being salty. What's Gary's motive for lying? Speaking of Japanese fighters, Sakuraba's career is the most suspect of all of them.

 

[Coolidge]

This has nothing to do with blind fanboism for PRIDE. Did I like PRIDE? Yes. But I also like the UFC. I like Bellator. I liked WEC, Strikeforce, and Affliction during their runs. I love everything MMA.

It obviously has a lot to do with blind fanboyism. You're only willing to admit that Pride fixed fights that weren't meaningful. How convenient. They were willing to fix a fight to benefit some random Japanese scrub, but they wouldn't do the same for a major marquee fight. That's something a Pride fanboy would say to minimize the fact that Pride put on fixed fights.

I am defending PRIDE because people use this idea of a very, very small amount of fixed fights to discredit the entire careers of great fighters. Some of the greatest mixed martial artists the sport has seen. Cause they can't except that for the first 15 years of its existance, the UFC was not the be all, end all of MMA and, in fact, played second fiddle to a superior org.

There's a laundry list of reasons to discredit those fighters. We can also talk about the rampant steroid use and the constant squash matches and Pride sanctioned can crushing. Those offenses are just as bad as the fact that Pride was operating like a pro-wrestling organization, pre-determined winners and all. 'Some of the greatest...' Maybe to Japanophiles and the fans looking at MMA with nostalgia goggles. I look back at fights like Fedor vs Cro Cop and see an overhyped fight that was mediocre even for the time period. I look at the careers of Wanderlei and Cro Cop and see that they were primarily fighting low to mid tier talent. For every 1 Fedor vs Nog, there were 10 Cro Cop vs masked Alberto Del Rio. The organization was a joke.

I am also able to seperate the spectacle of the sport from the great fighters. Just like I can seperate the Tank Abbotts, James Toneys, CM Punks(and the many other pro-wrestlers that have graced the octagon), from the great fighters at the top of the UFC.

James Toney and CM Punk were anomalies. Freakshows and overmatched fighters were a staple of Pride. That was their business. Show me the UFC equivalent of a giant running after a small Japanese man with a club straight out of the Flintstones. You can't do that because nothing that ridiculous has ever occurred.

 

[Stevanchez]

Actually, it's based on the same evidence used to state that Takada's fights were fixed. Again, Pride never acknowledged they were fixed fights. Neither did Takada. We believe his fight with Mark Coleman was fake because Coleman essentially admitted it and because the action looked fake. The suspected fixed fights that Rampage was a part of meet this standard. Both Gary Goodridge and Rampage (among other fighters) have come out and said Pride fixed fights. You've dismissed Rampage as being salty. What's Gary's motive for lying? Speaking of Japanese fighters, Sakuraba's career is the most suspect of all of them.

So, you must believe that some UFC fights are fixed. Cause Wandi, Tito, and Sonnen have all said as much.

Rampage complained specifically about his Wandi and Sakuraba fights. In one case, Wandi kneed his face into oblivion, twice. If that was a fix, then Rampage needs to learn how to take a dive better. In the other, he actually said he was poisoned before the Sakuraba fight. I mean, I don't even know how to respond to that.

Goodridge made a claim that Ogawa's camp(not PRIDE) offered him money to take a dive. He said he refused and lost anyway, so.... The rest of his claim was that, "90% of the EARLY PRIDE fights were fixed". So, other than being an obvious exaggeration(there is no hiding that many fixes), it also echos what I already said. The fixed fights took place early on in PRIDE to benefit big name Japanese wrestlers like Takada. The vast majority of the fights were legit.

 

[lefthighkick01]

guaranteed there would have been a several fixed fights in PRIDE.

cant guarantee for UFC but I wouldn't be surprised at all!

big money to be made with making sure trilogies happen and such...

 

[Matt M]

A lot of the thought process for people thinking some fights are fixed is often the result of immaturity and not being able to cope too well when things don't go the way you want.
People dislike a fighter, hate the fact that they won, so start banging on about it looking like a fix.

 

[HHJ]

guaranteed there would have been a several fixed fights in PRIDE.

cant guarantee for UFC but I wouldn't be surprised at all!

big money to be made with making sure trilogies happen and such...

you can guarantee? who are you?

 

[scardera]

Rhonda vs Nunes is the next fixed fight