In pride with fixed fights. We saw what happened when he came to the US
No. Personally I think Fedor was beatable and his fans move the prime ball etc.
If PRIDE fixed fights Fedor would have lost them. They didn’t want him as champion, he was underrated, threatened, they spread rumors of him being a coward ducking Crocop, his team was held at gunpoint, held hostage. He went and fought for Inoki for 100k because he was getting 15-20k in PRIDE. They wanted Crocop to be the champion. Fedor went through endless shit because of it. So if PRIDE was fixing Fedor fights it would be against him.
https://www.amazon.com/Pound-Modern-Gladiators-Mixed-Martial-ebook/dp/B00AQPZGE4
Read this and learn about how disrespected Fedor was in PRIDE. For some reason all these PRIDE fanboys are clueless about these things. Not sure if it’s the Alzheimers or they just didn’t pay attention to mma drama the way they do now. Fedor wasn’t a prized possession and respected there. The investigation that led to the fall of PRIDE was because of Fedor being fucked with actually. Fedor killed PRIDE.
There were rumors spread that Fedor was "terrified" of CroCop.
Allegations were stirred up mainly by the shady yakuza backing of PRIDE that he had faked a hand injury to get out of fighting Mirko.
The PRIDE brass hated Fedor and never wanted him to be champion, especially after he had left the organization as champion to compete on Inoki's NYE show for respectable pay of 150k.
Not only did PRIDE try to smear Fedor's name to the public with false allegations they took it many, many steps further. For example.. Fedor's signature was forged on his PRIDE contract, which paid him next to nothing between 10 and 15k per fight, as champion, while Mirko was paid well over 100k by this point.
PRIDE had favorites and did all the shady shit you can imagine. They were worse and less transparent than the UFC.
Sakikabara tried to bribe, threaten, strong arm, fuck over and extort them badly. He did a bunch of sketchy things. They had to report these crimes to the Public Security Intelligence Agency (the Japanese FBI) because they used terrorism against them and their families. This killed PRIDE. Y’all should read up.
The book also has chapters on GSP and other fighters who had bad dealings etc. It’s just PRIDE went levels above when it comes to shady with Fedor.