Were the fighter in Pride good?

[ovbious]

There's a lot of great fights in PRIDE, don't forget at the time they had a majority of the best fighters in the world instead of UFC. Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson transitioned well to the UFC, Big Nog won the interim HW title, Rampage & Shogun won the LHW title, but most of the big names from PRIDE 2000 to 2006 peaked and were on the downside of their careers when moving to the UFC.

/thread

 

[RoCkFoRdKiD89]

they were better than ufc fighters imo.

we could all argue why the had problems in the ufc etc, not everything was the same for every fighter.

 

[Thrawn33]

Forcast for this thread:

Cloudy with a 99% chance of a Shitstorm.....

 

[Polish Machine]

-Everyone who loves and misses Pride watched MMA during that era
-Everyone who hates Pride started watching MMA after Pride was done and they are just haters because they missed out on it.

 

[Echo5O]

Pride had some good and some not so good. Many of the fighters had gotten old by the time they came to the UFC. I don't know if rule changes had a huge effect, but look at strictly UFC fighters old enough to have fought in pride and they are not looking so good right now either. Chuck, Rich, Hughes, Ken Shamrock, Tito. I think the lack of success of many of the pride guys is age showing, some have been extremely successful. Anderson, rampage came over nd won a title, Shogun won a title, Mark Hunt hasn't looked bad, Nog won an interim title before he fell off a cliff age wise, Hendo. The list goes on but the point is that somewhere good and some not so much.

 

[spid3yo]

Pride had good fighters, who were routinely built up by fighting far lesser talent.

 

[Idioso]

UFC is definately the most talent rich organization, period. But Pride had great fighters in their own right.

Main difference, PrideFC didn't really care if you were good or not. They let anyone fight, can or not. Which made for some incredibly one-sided fights, like Goodridge vs Yoshiaki Yatsu, one of the worst beatings i've ever seen, the man just wouldn't fall down.

Most who transitioned from Pride were outdated by the time they moved to the States for their MMA.
Dan and Anderson aside.

 

[Wax999]

For sure, at one point, for a long time, Pride>UFC. The only reason the UFC surpassed Pride is because they went out of business, if Pride was still around you might not even see some of the top guys in the UFC still fighting for the UFC.

And I think what causes the supposed SHIT STORM is when people try to bend the truth like the Rooster omitting the fact that guys like Big Nog, Rampage, Shogun, Anderson Silva are all current/former UFC champions. That type of skewed bullshit doesn't need to find it's way into every Pride v. UFC discussion. The reality is, most of the top guys from Pride, had they arrived in this era, would be just as dominant. Could you imagine a 26 year old Wanderlai Silva in 2012? Or a prime Fedor? I mean shit, when Fedor killed Sylvia and Arlovski, they were-according to probably every MMA site and fan at the time, to be the #2 and #3 HWs in the World, Arlovski was on a nice winning streak, both murdered, careers dead.

 

[ic3j]

Compare the stars from both orgs at the time of the merge. Where are Chuck Liddell, Tim Sylvia, Franklin, Hughes, Arlovski and so on now?

Former UFC stars from that time are doing way worse.

 

[BenderRodriguez]

Different rules. Different supplements. Different country. Plus the Pride guys were aged by the time they came over. Of course they were good but put any top athlete from today against a top athlete from 5-6 years ago and you'll see a similar outcome

lol @ different supplements.

 

[xGRIMREAPERx]

Pride had good fighters. Some of the compitition were'nt the best so fighters built there stats but for a fighter to make it to the UFC & not bomb says something. Could be cage could be past prime either one I will accept

 

[theanticool]

How many guys from those days are still around though?
Look what happened to Tito, Chuck, Arlovski, Sylvia, Hughes and Couture post pride.
There are still a lot of former pride fighters from that 2000-2006 era still going strong like Werdum, Overeem, Hunt, Silva, Hendo, Barnett, and so on.

 

[Blake900]

Fedor is 1-3 in Strikeforce
Wandy is 4-7 in the UFC
Cro Cop is 4-6 in the UFC
Shogun is 5-4 in the UFC

Get at me bro

ok. I'll "get at you" won't take long.
Yes, those records are factual. Now, since the merger, would you care post the records of Tim Sylvia, Andre Arlovski, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell and wait?...wait a minute...WHO ELSE? Who else that was dominant in the UFC at the time in the two divisions of fighters you mentioned?

Now, kindly compare those to the people you've mentioned that were dominant in Pride.

 

[RacMan]

they were much better then the ufc guys and it clearly showed.

 

[COBRA03]

The debate will rage for years to come! Being a UFC fan before PRIDE existed made me more of a UFC fan then. I thought the UFC was superior until my hero, Chuck Liddell, got massacred by Rampage, then I started to take notice. Overall, PRIDE had the better HW division that has a real mystic to it with Fedor, Crocop, Barnett, Nog, ect., but after that, I believe the UFC talent was equal or better than PRIDE. Many big stars from PRIDE came to UFC and had only minor or no sucess, so who can say? I will say PRIDE put on the more spectacular events though, that will forever be the heyday of global MMA!

 

[Wax999]

And like a few others have said, it's almost apples v. oranges, especially nowadays when there's a lot of emphasis on cutting mad weight and the different rules such as no stomps or soccer kicks and Pride didn't allow elbows nor were they in a cage. Also, as you get older, you don't do as well, not everyone is Anderson or Hendo, or even Couture. Most are like Liddell, Shamrock, Hughes.

I mean think about this, Big Nog has only been defeated by 2 people in the UFC-Frank Mir and Cain V. That's it. He's one every single other fight. Every single loss under his belt is to a former champion. Prior to the UFC run he only lost to 3 people, Fedor, Barnett, and Dan Henderson. Barnett and Henderson were arguably fights Nog should have been given the nod. There's no question Nog will go down as one of the top 5 if not top 3 HWs of all time. And he's a Pride guy, somehow still kicking asses in the UFC.

 

[doubronz]

the pride fighters were killers then they come to ufc and get laid on by wrestlers

 

[astrozician]

Pride had some good things going for it, but it was also a tough pill to swallow. I liked that it was different in feel: for example, I liked Mauro and Bas on commentary. Sometimes I'd like Lenne Hart's announcing, but at other times she'd deliver the sonic equivalent of a tooth-ache.

The top fighters in Pride were on par with the top fighters in the UFC at the time, (obviously some better than others).

The problem is that the Pride bookers sucked and loved to book their top guys against unfit or unworthy competition. See my sig.

 

[diazisawesome**]

they were much better then the ufc guys and it clearly showed.

uh no

 

[Malachai]

There was a lot of great fights in Pride.

There was also far more crap fights, freakshow fights, screaming banshee announcers, overblown lightshows, and unnecessary naked Asian ass.