Best of PRIDE, and maybe DREAM too

Mark Hunt vs. Wanderlei Silva (Pride Shockwave 2004)

Helluva fight. For a guy who was a known slugger, Hunt was pretty impressive in his early foray into Mixed Martial Arts. It's a pity no-one back home knows who he is, because this was a pretty big deal at the time. Maybe I'm biased, but I thought Hunt won the fight.

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Pride Shockwave 2004)

Nogueira was owned here. Just cat and mouse stuff from Fedor. The best you can say is that he took everything Fedor dished out, but that was about all he could do. Not a great fight, but I don't think you get the full picture without seeing it.

There was a good Henderson/Kono fight on this card too. Henderson was lucky to come away with the split decision, I thought. Definitely one of the better PRIDE shows, though it does highlight how poor PRIDE became with its match making from this point on. Too many tournaments.

This might be an odd question OJ, but do you know of any carny stories or rumors about PRIDE that might not be known outside of Japan?

Nah, never bothered to find out.

Well Raging, thereīs the well known Sakuraba vs Jackson story, or the Krazy Horse vs Chute Boxe fight. Ninja vs Wanderlei puppy fight, and tons of more stories.
If you want I could make up a writing of it...

I've heard the stories about Jackson-Sakuraba, but Jackson seems to tweak his story from time to time. But I think the gist of it being that Jackson was forced to cut weight and being offered more money to lose than to win.

I don't think I've heard about this Silva/Ninja story, so yeah if you want to share some interesting PRIDE stories, it would be nice to read.

Anderson Silva vs. Daiji Takase (Pride 26)

This had some very good grappling and positioning from Takase and was a pretty huge upset.

OJ already put the exciting Fedor-Fujita fight on the list, but the Jackson-Illoukhine and Filipovic-Herring are two other fun squash-like fights to check out from the pretty good PRIDE 26 show.

DSE manipulated things as much as they possibly could.

IIRC, the whole thing reached a head when Arona was allowed to fuck-up Sakuraba for as long as he did, with the justification being that Sakuraba withstanding a KO was something that resonated with the Japanese audience. It's one thing to manipulate a fight so that it lasts longer, but to put a guy in harm's way like that was fucking stupid.

Well here it goes...it seems that Shogun (I put the wrong name) had a dog that was going to have puppies and he promised one to Wanderlei. After a few months Wandy went to get his dog and Shogun wanted to charge $100 dollars for it, with Wandy becoming angry at him because he thought that the dog was a gift for him.
So after a huge argument, it was decided that the scuffle was going to be decided on a ring, with the premise that if Wanderlei won, he could keep the dog for free and if Shogun won he would have gotten the $100 bucks. The story goes that Wanderlei knocked Shogun down and he got to keep the dog.
Mind that this story was Wandy of 2004-2005, so make up your own conclusions. I know more stories like that, and if someone wants I can open up a thread with them, if so the next one would be the real reason of why Ryan Gracie tapped out on his second fight with Kashin.

Watched -- Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mark Hunt (Pride Shockwave 2006)

This was a good fight. You'd think if Hunt were to rock Fedor it would be with a punch not on the ground, but he really surprised everyone here after he escaped that armbar. It's a shame it didn't go into a second round, but man did Fedor mean business when he got back to his feet.

Went back and glossed over Pride Critical Countdown 2004 but nothing really stands out. Nog vs. Herring has a reasonably entertaining first round but the fight never really develops into anything. The finish to Jackson/Arona and the Randleman slam on Fedor are cool highspots but a skippable show on the whole.

Randleplex!!:

Watched Pride Final Conflict Absolute.

Quite a strong show considering Pride was on the way out. Thought all of the Open-Weight Grand Prix matches deserved nominating.

Mirko Filipovic vs. Wanderlei Silva (Pride Final Conflict Absolute)
Josh Barnett vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Pride Final Conflict Absolute)
Mirko Filipovic vs. Josh Barnett (Pride Final Conflict Absolute)

There was open animosity between Crocop and Silva, which led to a nasty fight where Mirko fucked Silva up in a way that was pretty shocking for anyone who followed PRIDE from beginning to end.

Nogueira once again had the Fight of the Night in a match that could've gone either way had it been a three round fight, and the final has a pretty compelling story given Crocop's history of coming up short. Barnett makes an amazing recovery in this fight.

Definitely one of the stronger PRIDE tournaments.

Time for some DREAM.

Eddie Alvarez vs. Joachim Hansen (Dream 3)
Eddie Alvarez vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri (Dream 5)

You can find both these matches on this guy's user channel -- http://www.youtube.com/user/SmoothPorpis

Alvarez vs. Kawajiri is a great fight.

Dream 5 was a good show.

Here's a couple of matches to watch:

Shinya Aoki vs. Caol Uno (Lightweight Grand Prix Semi Final)

Part 1 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSQ6qj9ENU
Part 2 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umM5EAlUDtk

Shinya Aoki vs. Joachim Hansen (Lightweight Grand Prix Final)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x67keg_jo...oki-dream_sport

Aoki is a pretty boring fighter IMO, but this was a reasonably big deal:

Joachim Hansen vs. Shinya Aoki (Dream 11)

Part 1 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zEEgAV4t3c
Part 2 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GFh2ITz83Q

The Aussie commentator is embarrassing.

Hideo Tokoro vs. Darren Uyenoyama (Dream 4)

This was an entertaining bout with both guys doing their best to end the fight. Some nice action.

Takanori Gomi vs. Fabio Mello (Bushido 4)

Entertaining fight from Gomi. Not competitive enough to make this here list of mine, but well worth watching.

http://www.vidiLife.com/video_play_259821_...Fabio_Mello.htm

What!! The Voice is AWESOME man!!

I hope you're being sarcastic.

Me too.

Believe or not, Iīm not being sarcasting. I hated him on the begining but he has started to grow up on me. And some of his comments are awesome like: "he has taken more shots to the face than Belladonna!!". But thatīs me

Man, Eddie Alvarez beat the crap out of Dida in this fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVgTGrZxeqg

Watched some above average stuff from Dream (Jacare/Miller and Mousasi/Yoon), an overrated fight from Yarennoka! (Misaki/Akiyama), and some boring shit from Bushido 4 (Filho/Shoji and the other Brazilian Top Team vs. Team Japan match between Nogueira and Nakamura.) The latter was made more interesting by some amusing commentary from Quinton Jackson, but the best fight I've seen lately was from the same show:

Dokonjonosuke Mishima vs. Marcus Aurelio (Bushido 4)

This was a nice undercard fight. Both guys were working hard. Mishima spent more time in Aurelio's guard, but Aurelio fought hard from underneath to get a submission. Good action with a nice sort of flow.

Is it just me or is Jason Miller a bit of a dick?

Yarennoka! was the New Year's Eve show in 2007 that was supposed to be the farewell to PRIDE in Japan, but ended up being the genesis for DREAM. It was a show headlined by a ridiculous Fedor/Hong-Man Choi match-up, but this was the best fight:

Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Gilbert Melendez (Yarennoka!)

Part 1 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckjo6BB7zSg
Part 2 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jpnpBAZscw