# is Strikeforce as great as PRIDE was?



## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

edit: is strikeforce as great as pride was?

They are very comparable. The big difference is that the ufc is now 3-4 times bigger then it was so the ratio is greater.


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

> is Strikeforce as great as PRIDE was?



No. [/end thread]


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## limba (Jul 21, 2009)

Killstarz said:


> No. [/end thread]


Speaking the truth!:thumbsup:

Dream had something magical...

SF doesn't, and it won't either...


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

limba said:


> Speaking the truth!:thumbsup:
> 
> Dream had something *magical*...
> 
> SF doesn't, and it won't either...


magical? whats that the only difference is see is that theyre japanese.

and strikeforce did something pride couldnt do, have somebody beat fedor. (im fedor fan btw)


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## smokelaw1 (Aug 3, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> magical? whats that the only difference is see is that theyre japanese.
> 
> and strikeforce did something pride couldnt do, have somebody beat fedor. (im fedor fan btw)


Point #1 Above: You don't seem to looking very closely. 

Point #2 Above: WTF does that have to do with anything? They didn't "Have somebody" beat Fedor. Fedor jumped into a stupid position with an insanely talented BJJ expert. If this had happened in Pride, he would have lost then.


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## limba (Jul 21, 2009)

UFC86 said:


> magical? whats that the only difference is see is that theyre japanese.
> 
> and strikeforce did something pride couldnt do, have somebody beat fedor. (im fedor fan btw)


Pride put on the best shows! Unbelievable!
The intros to the fights were incredible! The atmosphere was INSANE!

Maybe it's just me!
Watch this!
There is a 3 hour documentary about Pride!
I embeded the first 5 parts i found on Youtube.
Or you could watch it all, on this link!

http://mmavideolinks.to/documentaries/2144-pride-decade.html


























Enjoy!


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## John8204 (May 13, 2010)

No Pride had Don Frye, the closest thing Strikeforce has to Frye is who... KJ Noons? :confused05:


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## Freelancer (Jul 5, 2007)

They Are Not Even Comparable!


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## Saenchai (Mar 11, 2010)

I think Pride is more comparable with UFC then with Strikeforce. Actually Pride had better fight cards then UFC and i mean nowadays UFC cus back when Pride was alive UFC was irrelevant compared to Pride! Beside, most of dominant fighters in UFC came from Pride. As for Strikeforce since it's Strikeforce that this thread is about, I say no, strikeforce will never be on Pride's level! They can't even put reasonable fights together (ex: fedor beats rogers, rogers gets title shot...or fedor loses to werdum and wants title shot, and he would get it if overeem wasn't in for k-1 fights this year!)


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> they are very comparable
> 
> @HW SF has Fedor, Ubereem, Werdum, Antonio Silva, Barnett compared to Pride that had Fedor, Cro Cop, Big Nog, Barnett


 No SF has Fedor(2010) Ubereem (V2.0), Werdum, Antonio Silva and Barnett (2010).
Pride had Fedor,CroCop, Nog and Barnett in there primes, Pride also had guys like Don Frye, Gary Goodridge, Mark Coleman, Gilbert Yvel, Heath Herring (who was a legit top 5 HW when he was in Pride) Semmy Schilt, Aleks E,Yoshida, Kharitonov, Mark Hunt, etc,


> @205 SF has Feijao, Mousasi, Lawal, Hendo, Babalu, Roger Gracie compared to Pride's Shogun, Wanderlei, Lil Nog,Arona


 You forgot Mezger, Sakuraba,Vernon White. Vitor Belfort, Hendo,Rampage, Jeremy Horn, Kevin Randleman,Minowman, etc,


> > the big difference is that the ufc is now 3-4 times bigger then it was so the ratio is greater.
> 
> 
> No, I am gonna try to explain this nicely because I suspect your rather new to the sport or have a limited knowledge of the historical significance or historical accomplishments of many of the Pride era fighters. You cannot judge a company so long past based on the current success or failure of the fighters that once called it home. Many have retired, some were getting on then and many others just are not at there peak anymore and cannot compete at the same level. SF has a decent HW division but they do not even remotely rival the depth that Pride had. In fact short of possibly the current UFC roster no organization in history has been able to compete with that depth. With all due respect you couldn't be more wrong.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Saenchai said:


> I think Pride is more comparable with UFC then with Strikeforce. Actually Pride had better fight cards then UFC and i mean nowadays UFC cus back when Pride was alive UFC was irrelevant compared to Pride! Beside, most of dominant fighters in UFC came from Pride. As for Strikeforce since it's Strikeforce that this thread is about, I say no, strikeforce will never be on Pride's level! They can't even put reasonable fights together (ex: fedor beats rogers, rogers gets title shot...or fedor loses to werdum and wants title shot, and he would get it if overeem wasn't in for k-1 fights this year!)


so youre saying strikeforce today is comparable with ufc of back then? like i said ufc currently is 3-4 times bigger then it was back then. who they had? @HW sylvia and arlovski @lhw Liddell, Couture and Tito and im not even sure they had a 155 division that only had Sherk and Penn.



Toxic said:


> No SF has Fedor(2010) Ubereem (V2.0), Werdum, Antonio Silva and Barnett (2010).
> Pride had Fedor,CroCop, Nog and Barnett in there primes, Pride also had guys like Don Frye, Gary Goodridge, Mark Coleman, Gilbert Yvel, Heath Herring (who was a legit top 5 HW when he was in Pride) Semmy Schilt, Aleks E,Yoshida, Kharitonov, Mark Hunt, etc,
> You forgot Mezger, Sakuraba,Vernon White. Vitor Belfort, Hendo,Rampage, Jeremy Horn, Kevin Randleman,Minowman, etc,
> 
> No, I am gonna try to explain this nicely because I suspect your rather new to the sport or have a limited knowledge of the historical significance or historical accomplishments of many of the Pride era fighters. You cannot judge a company so long past based on the current success or failure of the fighters that once called it home. Many have retired, some were getting on then and many others just are not at there peak anymore and cannot compete at the same level. SF has a decent HW division but they do not even remotely rival the depth that Pride had. In fact short of possibly the current UFC roster no organization in history has been able to compete with that depth. With all due respect you couldn't be more wrong.


now i know Cro Cop and Big Nog were at their prime and way better fighters then they are today, but they are in ufc now so i dont compare them to their current state. i compare cro cop and big nog to ubereem and werdum, and i think fedor and barnett only deteriorated slightly. also Pride didnt have a steroid testing requirement implanted, im not going to point any fingers, but the likelihood of fighters taking steroids increases when there is no testing involved (for example when did barnett win a big fight when there was steroid testing implented, and he passed the test?).

regarding the fighters you listed-Frye- entertaining pioneer but not more. goodridge- overrated arm wrestler coleman- great as a pioneer but not as mma evolved yvel-horrible in pride herring- definetly not top 5 schilt hunt kharitonov- 1d strikers with no achievements in mma yoshida- couldnt beat royce gracie dana white-only good in pancrase sakuraba- pioneer and thats it rampage-only became good in ufc horn randleman and minowaman- come on!

pride probably had more depth, but who cares about that when its fighters that are on ultimate fighter reject levels? lots of fighters crossed over from pro wrestling and couldnt fight, or were just freakshows (giant silva for example). strikeforce seems to try and stay away from freakshows (they rejected the possibility of signing kimbo)


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

Gawd no.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

limba said:


> Pride put on the best shows! Unbelievable!
> The intros to the fights were incredible! The atmosphere was INSANE!
> 
> Maybe it's just me!
> ...


thanks for posting this!

this is a good documentary. though im sure strikeforce and ufc could also make good documentaries.

what i see there is they have great arenas with flashing lights and big entrances. but elite xc had the same thing, and they were doing freakshows as well. it doesnt make pride special or magical. even Art of War has big entrances and music

i liked pride but certain things annoyed me about pride. fixed matches (especially takadas), biased judging for japanese fighters, and bad matchmaking. i cant say these things dont occur in strikeforce though with certainty.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> so youre saying strikeforce today is comparable with ufc of back then? like i said ufc currently is 3-4 times bigger then it was back then. who they had? @HW sylvia and arlovski @lhw Liddell, Couture and Tito and im not even sure they had a 155 division that only had Sherk and Penn.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your compelety rejecting the context of when they were fighting. In ten years Fedor/Rogers/Overeem/Barnett will be no more credible than Saku/Coleman/Herring/Frye. Its the nature of the beast but at the time its hard to argue they weren't important. You mock talking of Sakuraba which just goes to show your ignorance of his historical signifigance. Without Sakuraba there would have been no Pride and likely there would not be a Dream today only Funaki an Suzuki have more historical significance to MMA in Japan. Strikeforce has yet to have a fighter come through there doors who has been as historically significant for there company. All those people I named drew money and were popular stars in there day but because you don't understand there significance in the proper context your can't possibly come to terms and understand just how important they were in there era. The comparison between SF and Pride is ludicrous Pride was and international phenomenon while SF is a step above a regional promotion.


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## Rusty (Apr 13, 2010)

You're digging yourself deeper 86. Not gonna gain any fans by bashing pride:thumbsdown:


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

RustyRenegade said:


> You're digging yourself deeper 86. Not gonna gain any fans by bashing pride:thumbsdown:


I don't think he is trying to bash Pride. I just don't think he really understands just what Pride was. I don't think he understands the caliber those cards were because he is looking back at them with a current mindset. Its like looking back at Ken Shamrock and laughing at the poor quality of the guys who fought in the early UFC's. Or saying Tito never beat anyone good when he was UFC champ because he was fighting guys like Ken Shamrock and Guy Mezger.


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## Rusty (Apr 13, 2010)

Toxic said:


> I don't think he is trying to bash Pride. I just don't think he really understands just what Pride was. I don't think he understands the caliber those cards were because he is looking back at them with a current mindset. Its like looking back at Ken Shamrock and laughing at the poor quality of the guys who fought in the early UFC's. Or saying Tito never beat anyone good when he was UFC champ because he was fighting guys like Ken Shamrock and Guy Mezger.


I get what you're saying but when I first got on here and didn't know who Sakuraba was I was made fun of If I remember right you told them to back off too. Luckily I was turned on to Pride by the other members here and can appreciate what it was. The Op would too I imagine. Love reading about it and I'll be watching that documentary that was posted earlier when I get home. I should have used another word besides bashing I suppose:thumbsup: Either way, Pride>Strikeforce


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## KillerShark1985 (Jan 6, 2010)

I dont see the connection, if anything I would say SF stands out for other reasons, in many ways SF treat it more like a Sport than a Show like it gets treated by the UFC (WWE style), SF has a lot of qualities I like, for example they are willing to honestly acknowledged a fighters achievements on the MMA circuit and away from there own promotion, and thus giving any and all new fighter coming to them a suitable opponents, where as the UFC just hypes them up through there own promotion which has a very strong marketing tool to convince people that there fighters would beat the rest of the world, I mean just look how many fools they drew into believe that Brock was one of the best HW's ion the world after around only 5 fights lol.


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

The Honda Center which hosted that last Brock/Cain fight seats 17,174 people.

The Cesar's Palace Colosseum which hosts Major boxing and MMA events seats 4,296 people.

The Saiatama Super Arena was selling out 37,000 seats for an MMA event, 10-15 years ago. 

It's not about the intro music or the crazy annoucement lady. Pride contained, "relative to its time," the greatest fighters in the world and was selling 37,000 seats 10-15 years ago. 

The last biggest and baddest UFC 121 event, at a full house in the Honda Center would have left more then half of Saitama Stadium completely empty. The fans weren't pitched hype to create interest, they knew MMA and appreciated it to a level that we in the U.S. have yet to reach as a whole. That's why Pride was magical.

SF isn't comparable to the UFC and it sure as heck isnt comparable to PRIDE. I think today's elite fighters would beat yester-years elite fighters of PRIDE for sure, but for it time, PRIDE was the king of all MMA, internationally.

If there was a Japanese counter-part of Dana White, perpetuating PRIDE as Dana advocates for the UFC, PRIDE would have become the New World Order by now.

That said, I did hate all that shady, Triad fight set up BS, but apart from that, PRIDE was a sick generation.


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## Rusty (Apr 13, 2010)

Brock is one of the best in the world. Of course Strikeforce will have to acknowledge achievements outside of their organization. What could they say about a fighter who only has 2-3 fights in Strikeforce besides outside fights?


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> Your compelety rejecting the context of when they were fighting. In ten years Fedor/Rogers/Overeem/Barnett will be no more credible than Saku/Coleman/Herring/Frye. Its the nature of the beast but at the time its hard to argue they weren't important. You mock talking of Sakuraba which just goes to show your ignorance of his historical signifigance. Without Sakuraba there would have been no Pride and likely there would not be a Dream today only Funaki an Suzuki have more historical significance to MMA in Japan. Strikeforce has yet to have a fighter come through there doors who has been as historically significant for there company. All those people I named drew money and were popular stars in there day but because you don't understand there significance in the proper context your can't possibly come to terms and understand just how important they were in there era. The comparison between SF and Pride is ludicrous Pride was and international phenomenon while SF is a step above a regional promotion.


the sport is very young, it was about a decade ago when coleman won the grand prix, it hadent change as much. one of the top dogs back then Fedor is still among the top. i didnt mock sakuraba i said hes a pioneer, just like royce gracie and mark coleman were. but they were great at the level they were fighting. they would never beat a guy like Jacare or Fedor.



RustyRenegade said:


> You're digging yourself deeper 86. Not gonna gain any fans by bashing pride:thumbsdown:


i used to love pride. i used to tell everybody how pride has better fighters in every weight class then ufc at the time. i also loved the entrances like was said earlier, the respect and the like. but im just comparing it to strikeforce which is considered the bush league of mma today (maybe if it is compared to ufc) but people dont realize that even though Pride>UFC back then and UFC>>>SF today, pride and sf are on about the same level. it was ufc that changed 3-4 times. SF=Pride.



VolcomX311 said:


> The Honda Center which hosted that last Brock/Cain fight seats 17,174 people.
> The Cesar's Palace Colosseum which hosts Major boxing and MMA events seats 4,296 people.
> The Saiatama Super Arena was selling out 37,000 seats for an MMA event, 10-15 years ago.
> 
> That said, I did hate all that shady, Triad fight set up BS, but apart from that, PRIDE was a sick generation.


this is not a bonus for pride but rather a minus. pride had so many seated fans and yet you could hear crickets. if it was a small crowd and was as loud as thunder then i would say it was great.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> the sport is very young, it was about a decade ago when coleman won the grand prix, it hadent change as much. one of the top dogs back then Fedor is still among the top. i didnt mock sakuraba i said hes a pioneer, just like royce gracie and mark coleman were. but they were great at the level they were fighting. they would never beat a guy like Jacare or Fedor.


 But if your gonna compare SF to Pride and try to put them on the same level you need to have people to fill those voids of both popularity and sucess that those fighters like Coleman and Sakuraba filled in Pride, instead your just saying they aren't relevent now which is true but when comparing talent rosters they are very relevant.




> i used to love pride. i used to tell everybody how pride has better fighters in every weight class then ufc at the time. i also loved the entrances like was said earlier, the respect and the like. but im just comparing it to strikeforce which is considered the bush league of mma today (maybe if it is compared to ufc) but people dont realize that even though Pride>UFC back then and UFC>>>SF today, pride and sf are on about the same level. it was ufc that changed 3-4 times. SF=Pride.


 Except its not true, globally UFC may be Prides equal now. Strikeforce is nowhere near the global phenom that Pride was and has been nowhere near as sucessful.




> this is not a bonus for pride but rather a minus. pride had so many seated fans and yet you could hear crickets. if it was a small crowd and was as loud as thunder then i would say it was great.


That is a culture thing though. In Japan being loud and boisterous like a UFC crowd would be seen as very disrespectful.


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## guam68 (Jun 14, 2009)

> this is not a bonus for pride but rather a minus. pride had so many seated fans and yet you could hear crickets. if it was a small crowd and was as loud as thunder then i would say it was great.


The fact that the arena was quiet really doesn't attest to anything. I'd say it's a culture thing more than anything. Here in the US people like to yell and boo and whatnot. So what? It's not like over in Japan they were sleeping during the fights or something. They definitely did react when something big happened. Respectful and knowledgeable. If only crowds nowadays would learn a thing or two from them.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> But if your gonna compare SF to Pride and try to put them on the same level you need to have people to fill those voids of both popularity and sucess that those fighters like Coleman and Sakuraba filled in Pride, instead your just saying they aren't relevent now which is true but when comparing talent rosters they are very relevant.
> 
> 
> Except its not true, globally UFC may be Prides equal now. Strikeforce is nowhere near the global phenom that Pride was and has been nowhere near as sucessful.
> ...


so how do you expect strikeforce to fill those voids? you want them to sign these fighters right now and that will make them greater then pride? coleman was released by ufc and sakuraba lost quite a few. of course theyre past their prime, but you cannot say marciano was greater then Ali because he was earlier or that George Mikan was greater then Kareem Abdul Jabbar. fighters were not as good as they are now and we can compare because its a relatively new sport.

what do you mean by pride being "global"? ufc is spreading to countries where pride never was and very fast.


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## xeberus (Apr 23, 2007)

> No. [/end thread]


this ^


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> so how do you expect strikeforce to fill those voids? you want them to sign these fighters right now and that will make them greater then pride? coleman was released by ufc and sakuraba lost quite a few. of course theyre past their prime, but you cannot say marciano was greater then Ali because he was earlier or that George Mikan was greater then Kareem Abdul Jabbar. fighters were not as good as they are now and we can compare because its a relatively new sport.
> 
> what do you mean by pride being "global"? ufc is spreading to countries where pride never was and very fast.





> Fedor, Ubereem, Werdum, Antonio Silva, Barnett compared to Pride that had Fedor, Cro Cop, Big Nog, Barnett


 What do you think your doing right here? Your comparing using guys like Ubereem and Werdum to fill the voids of Cro Cop and Big Now. The thing is your comparing SF's entire roster to a mere portion of Prides.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> What do you think your doing right here? Your comparing using guys like Ubereem and Werdum to fill the voids of Cro Cop and Big Now. The thing is your comparing SF's entire roster to a mere portion of Prides.


but im filling voids with comparable fighters. royce gracie, sakuraba and coleman were the best when everybody was 1d. mark coleman would have never beaten barnett or fedor since they came to the big shows. in terms of pioneers obviously pride was greater cause all strikeforce had at the time was josh thomson if im not mistaken.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

But Coleman was still a marquee name so you need to fill that void. Sakuraba is one of the most beloved fighters in the history of the sport.


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## Saenchai (Mar 11, 2010)

UFC86 said:


> so youre saying strikeforce today is comparable with ufc of back then? like i said ufc currently is 3-4 times bigger then it was back then. who they had? @HW sylvia and arlovski @lhw Liddell, Couture and Tito and im not even sure they had a 155 division that only had Sherk and Penn.


I don't know if I can compare today's strikeforce with lets say 06 UFC, cus strikeforce apparently has lame organization, like i said before they can't put good fights together. But comparing the roosters i'd say todays strikeforce has pretty even rooster as 06 UFC. As for todays UFC, when pride "died" majority of the fighters went to UFC, the bad thing about it most of them are not in their prime anymore so people are saying "yeah, they were never actually good it's just that they can't compete with what UFC has to offer!" which is not true, not by far! Those who are out of their prime (nogueira, cro cop, wanderlei, rampage maybe, henderson) are all 30+ years old and all of them with 30+ fights. There are former pride fighters that are champions in UFC right now...Shogun and Anderson. And there are those who WOULD be in pride today if pride was still alive...velasquez, JDS, Machida, infact every fighter in UFC that's above avarage and that didn't come from TUF would be in pride today + every fighter in strikeforce cus strikeforce is a joke and beside, if pride didn't fall appart they'd still have 5 fighters under their contract!) 



UFC86 said:


> now i know Cro Cop and Big Nog were at their prime and way better fighters then they are today, but they are in ufc now so i dont compare them to their current state. i compare cro cop and big nog to ubereem and werdum, and i think fedor and barnett only deteriorated slightly. also Pride didnt have a steroid testing requirement implanted, im not going to point any fingers, but the likelihood of fighters taking steroids increases when there is no testing involved (for example when did barnett win a big fight when there was steroid testing implented, and he passed the test?).
> 
> regarding the fighters you listed-Frye- entertaining pioneer but not more. goodridge- overrated arm wrestler coleman- great as a pioneer but not as mma evolved yvel-horrible in pride herring- definetly not top 5 schilt hunt kharitonov- 1d strikers with no achievements in mma yoshida- couldnt beat royce gracie dana white-only good in pancrase sakuraba- pioneer and thats it rampage-only became good in ufc horn randleman and minowaman- come on!
> 
> pride probably had more depth, but who cares about that when its fighters that are on ultimate fighter reject levels? lots of fighters crossed over from pro wrestling and couldnt fight, or were just freakshows (giant silva for example). strikeforce seems to try and stay away from freakshows (they rejected the possibility of signing kimbo)


I'll respond on this 2...regarding illegal substances, they are present in UFC aswell even though you'll probably deny it or whatever but to be honest i don't care cus i have my sources to claim that and i'm 110% sure it's true maybe not so spread as in pride but there are illegal substances in UFC for sure, so i'll skip it. What caught my attention are those descriptions you wrote about frye, goodridge coleman etc..let me remind you that they were pretty dominant in UFC at some point, some of them even held the title at the time so i wouldn't say they were overrated. Once you're out of prime doesn't mean you were always lame! frye was 6-1 in UFC, came to pride won 3 and then he lost few fights and it was over for him but i wouldn't call him an "entertainer", he was 15-1 at some point of his career and that was when he was 36 years old so if you call that an entertainer then i don't know who's a real fighter for you. Goodridge overrated arm wrestler? ok i admit, he was nothing special but we all still remember THIS right? Coleman is average if we look on his complete career (infact he's lame right now) but looking at 1996-2001 he was a killer back then. Yvel was lame in pride, i give you that and he's lame right now aswell .. he was pretty good before pride though 22-4...herring was average, i mean even his record speaks like it...i'll skip those strikers cus they ain't really nothing else but strikers, what really caught my attention here was "sakuraba- pioneer (explain please..)" and "rampage-only became good in ufc"..made me laugh ....rampage did beat at that time UFC's nr1 guy you know?  ... and yeah, the freak shows lol...apparently the japanese public seems to like fight like big dude vs small dude, i don't see any other reason of having freak shows in their rooster..i mean, look at kaoklai vs hong man choi fight lol...it was a k-1 fight but it's not like we haven't seen such things in pride  ...i love UFC and freak show thing you mentioned (picking their fighters) is one of the things why but like i said before pride was making more interesting fights..you could watch a pride fight card and pay attention to every single fight on the card with exactly the same enthusiasm being a main event or the lamest fight on the card you'd still watch it with joy..in ufc some fights on the card are just lame, take UFC 122 fight card as example, on that card every fight is lame including main event. So like Dana White says, "we're in entertaining business", you gotta include freak shows to make people watch it! I mean, tell me you don't enjoy watching some small dude beating up a giant?


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## Rauno (Nov 20, 2009)

Killstarz said:


> No. [/end thread]


I agree. This thread is turning into a useless debate since nobody in their right mind would think that Strikeforce is even near to the level Pride was.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> But Coleman was still a marquee name so you need to fill that void. Sakuraba is one of the most beloved fighters in the history of the sport.


what do you mean by "beloved"? every fighter is beloved by his fans. its not about love its about fighting. sakuraba was the first man to officially defeat royce in a match in mma. royce was the first mma or at least ufc champion. but thats when the sport took off. fighters like fedor, big nog and cro cop were as good as they come. i compare them to fedor, werdum and ubereem of today. of course fedor is slightly past his prime, but hes only 34. as i said pride had more pioneers then strikeforce theres no question about it. they got them in their pocket in that regard.



Saenchai said:


> I don't know if I can compare today's strikeforce with lets say 06 UFC, cus strikeforce apparently has lame organization, like i said before they can't put good fights together. But comparing the roosters i'd say todays strikeforce has pretty even rooster as 06 UFC. As for todays UFC, when pride "died" majority of the fighters went to UFC, the bad thing about it most of them are not in their prime anymore so people are saying "yeah, they were never actually good it's just that they can't compete with what UFC has to offer!" which is not true, not by far! Those who are out of their prime (nogueira, cro cop, wanderlei, rampage maybe, henderson) are all 30+ years old and all of them with 30+ fights. There are former pride fighters that are champions in UFC right now...Shogun and Anderson. And there are those who WOULD be in pride today if pride was still alive...velasquez, JDS, Machida, infact every fighter in UFC that's above avarage and that didn't come from TUF would be in pride today + every fighter in strikeforce cus strikeforce is a joke and beside, if pride didn't fall appart they'd still have 5 fighters under their contract!)
> 
> I'll respond on this 2...regarding illegal substances, they are present in UFC aswell even though you'll probably deny it or whatever but to be honest i don't care cus i have my sources to claim that and i'm 110% sure it's true maybe not so spread as in pride but there are illegal substances in UFC for sure, so i'll skip it. What caught my attention are those descriptions you wrote about frye, goodridge coleman etc..let me remind you that they were pretty dominant in UFC at some point, some of them even held the title at the time so i wouldn't say they were overrated. Once you're out of prime doesn't mean you were always lame! frye was 6-1 in UFC, came to pride won 3 and then he lost few fights and it was over for him but i wouldn't call him an "entertainer", he was 15-1 at some point of his career and that was when he was 36 years old so if you call that an entertainer then i don't know who's a real fighter for you. Goodridge overrated arm wrestler? ok i admit, he was nothing special but we all still remember THIS right? Coleman is average if we look on his complete career (infact he's lame right now) but looking at 1996-2001 he was a killer back then. Yvel was lame in pride, i give you that and he's lame right now aswell .. he was pretty good before pride though 22-4...herring was average, i mean even his record speaks like it...i'll skip those strikers cus they ain't really nothing else but strikers, what really caught my attention here was "sakuraba- pioneer (explain please..)" and "rampage-only became good in ufc"..made me laugh ....rampage did beat at that time UFC's nr1 guy you know?  ... and yeah, the freak shows lol...apparently the japanese public seems to like fight like big dude vs small dude, i don't see any other reason of having freak shows in their rooster..i mean, look at kaoklai vs hong man choi fight lol...it was a k-1 fight but it's not like we haven't seen such things in pride  ...i love UFC and freak show thing you mentioned (picking their fighters) is one of the things why but like i said before pride was making more interesting fights..you could watch a pride fight card and pay attention to every single fight on the card with exactly the same enthusiasm being a main event or the lamest fight on the card you'd still watch it with joy..in ufc some fights on the card are just lame, take UFC 122 fight card as example, on that card every fight is lame including main event. So like Dana White says, "we're in entertaining business", you gotta include freak shows to make people watch it! I mean, tell me you don't enjoy watching some small dude beating up a giant?


wow this was looooong to say the least, but ill still reply. rampage did beat Arona and Chuck thats true, but since then Chuck reinvented his career and became way greater, only to lose to rampage again...and chuck never did good since then...you gotta admit rampage did way better in ufc then in pride where he had his ass handed to him. his boxing improved and fighters were stupid enough to go toe to toe with him.

i didnt say they dont use steroids in ufc, actually the guy that fought Broughton just got busted for steroids and released from ufc. they use plenty of steroids and i have my suspicions on alot of fighters that werent caught yet that fight for ufc. sonnen is another example. i just think that certain fighters had huge decline related to ped's when they left pride, but i wont name any names (josh barnett was busted though). Anderson Silva is a fighter that i believe never did steroids, but i could be wrong.

ufc 122 (and 120 for that matter) is just the ufc being stupid and screwing over the fans and has less to do with pride. those cards look shameful even if they were strikefoce. regarding bad match making in strikeforce, thats true but at least we see fights. so what if rogers didnt deserve a title shot? he was going to fight overeem eventually anyways, and it was a good matchup of two big strikers.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

> what do you mean by "beloved"? every fighter is beloved by his fans. its not about love its about fighting. sakuraba was the first man to officially defeat royce in a match in mma. royce was the first mma or at least ufc champion. but thats when the sport took off. fighters like fedor, big nog and cro cop were as good as they come. i compare them to fedor, werdum and ubereem of today. of course fedor is slightly past his prime, but hes only 34. as i said pride had more pioneers then strikeforce theres no question about it. they got them in their pocket in that regard.


You have no understanding of Pride if you don't understand by what I mean by beloved. The closest I could come to explaining it is Wanderlei Silva is beloved in that the fans love him and respect him regardless of his wins or losses . There is a reason that Sakuraba despite not being relevant anymore is not fighting on nothing cards like say Ken Shamrock. Its cause he is beloved by the fans so even if he is no longer relevant they will pay to see him fight. The entire Pride organization was practically built around Sakuraba vs the Gracies. I really think your historical understanding of Pride as an organization is relatively weak.


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## Steph05050 (Jun 4, 2008)

not even close. Pride was by far better


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> You have no understanding of Pride if you don't understand by what I mean by beloved. The closest I could come to explaining it is Wanderlei Silva is beloved in that the fans love him and respect him regardless of his wins or losses . There is a reason that Sakuraba despite not being relevant anymore is not fighting on nothing cards like say Ken Shamrock. Its cause he is beloved by the fans so even if he is no longer relevant they will pay to see him fight. The entire Pride organization was practically built around Sakuraba vs the Gracies. I really think your historical understanding of Pride as an organization is relatively weak.


dont forget the japanese like freakshows and would rather see a local hero then a legitimate contender. look what theyre doing with minowa they make him this giant slayer. from above average middleweight with some decent wins, they turned his career into a joke giving him FIXED fights vs heavyweights (HMC, Soko, Errol Zimmerman etc). Sakuraba was great for his time, just like Royce, Frye, Severn, Coleman etc were great for their time. the same goes for wanderlei silva. wanderlei actually beat sakuraba when they were both in their prime, 3 times!


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## Rusty (Apr 13, 2010)

UFC86 said:


> dont forget the japanese like freakshows and would rather see a local hero then a legitimate contender. look what theyre doing with minowa they make him this giant slayer. from above average middleweight with some decent wins, they turned his career into a joke giving him FIXED fights vs heavyweights (HMC, Soko, Errol Zimmerman etc). Sakuraba was great for his time, just like Royce, Frye, Severn, Coleman etc were great for their time. the same goes for wanderlei silva. wanderlei actually beat sakuraba when they were both in their prime, 3 times!


Pride was fantastic and strikeforce is mediocre. Give it up:thumbsdown:


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## _RIVAL_ (Mar 7, 2008)

LOL.. "dream has something magical" really? 

STRIKEFORCE has killed the DREAM heros.. Aoki, Manhoef, Mousasi, Mo, Zaromskis, Cavalcante, Shaolin... they all lost their fights in STRIKEFORCE...


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## swpthleg (Dec 31, 2006)

UFC86 said:


> but im filling voids with comparable fighters. royce gracie, sakuraba and coleman were the best when everybody was 1d. mark coleman would have never beaten barnett or fedor since they came to the big shows. in terms of pioneers obviously pride was greater cause all strikeforce had at the time was josh thomson if im not mistaken.


It would be a lot easier to read your posts if you would use capitalization and more punctuation. Thanks.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

UFC86 said:


> dont forget the japanese like freakshows and would rather see a local hero then a legitimate contender. look what theyre doing with minowa they make him this giant slayer. from above average middleweight with some decent wins, they turned his career into a joke giving him FIXED fights vs heavyweights (HMC, Soko, Errol Zimmerman etc). Sakuraba was great for his time, just like Royce, Frye, Severn, Coleman etc were great for their time. the same goes for wanderlei silva. wanderlei actually beat sakuraba when they were both in their prime, 3 times!


If you understood the Japanese roots of MMA and that it basically came about as an evolution of Pro Wrestling it would all make more sense. There were tons of fixed fights in both Pride and Pancrease and many more were the fighters were more concerned with putting on a good show than winning.


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

Even for those who never saw Pride, or who got into MMA once the UFC became popular needs to watch the documenatary that limba posted. 

If you STILL think Strikeforce is comparable to Pride then you need to seriously get a grip on Reality. Strikeforce is nothing compared to how Pride was, how it evolved and what it stood for.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

Toxic said:


> If you understood the Japanese roots of MMA and that it basically came about as an evolution of Pro Wrestling it would all make more sense. There were tons of fixed fights in both Pride and Pancrease and many more were the fighters were more concerned with putting on a good show than winning.


Fighters like Sakuraba, Takada and Tamura came from UWFi which was shoot style (meaning not 100% shoot) wrestling. People liked watching it because it looked real and was marketed as real in europe. The kicks sounded real, the wrestling looked real, and so were the submissions. People were attracted to it because they thought it was real.


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## Freelancer (Jul 5, 2007)

Toxic said:


> If you understood the Japanese roots of MMA and that it basically came about as an evolution of Pro Wrestling it would all make more sense. *There were tons of fixed fights in both Pride and Pancrease* and many more were the fighters were more concerned with putting on a good show than winning.


Tons is an exaggeration. There was a couple of fixed fights in both orgs, but not so many.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

Freelancer said:


> Tons is an exaggeration. There was a couple of fixed fights in both orgs, but not so many.


There were quite a few in the early days of both. Winning was seldomly the first concern for the fighters to which is somewhat similar. There were also slightly less outright fies were opponents were switched with one fighter finding a long way out the other fighter finding out at the last minute. 
An example of a fight that may not have been straight out fixed but lets say is fishy is Bas Rutten when he fought Minoru Suzuki. The fight was not fixed in the sense there was no deal made for Rutten to win a certain way but its widely regarded that at that point Rutten had little TD defense and zero ground game. Its widely believed that had Suzuki chosen to he could have taken Rutten down and submitted him with little difficulty. Thing is like many early Pancrease bouts, Suzuki was more worried about having a great fight and building Rutten up as a star than he was about winning or losing. 

Realistically the most well known is Coleman/Takada but there were more bouts. Rampage was offered a bonus to lose via TKO or submission when he fought Sakuraba. Think about that. They didn't tell him to throw the fight but they offered him a bonus to lose decisively. IF he won or it went to a decision he wouldn't get it. Money was tight for a lot of fighters in the early days and I would bet there are a lot of questionable fights that never came to light.
As Mark Coleman said when people question the legitimacy of the Takada fight "It was what it was. I needed to support my family. They guaranteed me another fight after that and I needed that security. It was what it was. I'm going to leave it at that." He has never said it was fixed but it doesn't sound like much of a protest.


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## limba (Jul 21, 2009)

Pride was recognised as the biggest promotion of it's time!
Strikeforece isn't.

Pride - a 10 year history of memorable events!
Strikeforce - a 4 year history of not too many memorable events!

Pride >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Srtikeforce



Killstarz said:


> No. [/end thread]


And i will also quote this.


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## UFC_OWNS (Jul 7, 2010)

i unfortunately have seen no pride fights because i got into mma in late 08 and pride was long dead before that, but i hav heard it was magical and fantastic and i know the quality events and fighters they had, the most memorable strikeforce event i watched was james thompson getting his ear punched off by kimbo slice in a freak show, strikeforce signs freak showes like lashley,kimbo and they will most likely get batista so i dont take it that seriously except for the few good fighters that have.


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## limba (Jul 21, 2009)

UFC_OWNS said:


> i unfortunately have seen no pride fights because i got into mma in late 08 and pride was long dead before that, but i hav heard it was magical and fantastic and i know the quality events and fighters they had, the most memorable strikeforce event i watched was james thompson getting his ear punched off by kimbo slice in a freak show, strikeforce signs freak showes like lashley,kimbo and they will most likely get batista so i dont take it that seriously except for the few good fighters that have.


This is why! raise01:

Daaamn, i miss this!


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

limba said:


> Pride was recognised as the biggest promotion of it's time!
> Strikeforece isn't.
> 
> Pride - a 10 year history of memorable events!
> ...


PRIDE in just two full events have probably sold more in-house seats then all of SF events have to date.

37,000 seats in Saitama Stadium, compared to the 5-7,000 seats indian casino venues of SF, please.


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

UFC_OWNS said:


> i unfortunately have seen no pride fights because i got into mma in late 08 and pride was long dead before that, but i hav heard it was magical and fantastic and i know the quality events and fighters they had, the most memorable strikeforce event i watched was james thompson getting his ear punched off by kimbo slice in a freak show, strikeforce signs freak showes like lashley,kimbo and they will most likely get batista so i dont take it that seriously except for the few good fighters that have.


James Thompson vs Kimbo was EliteXc


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

UFC86 said:


> James Thompson vs Kimbo was EliteXc


Thats very true, but same people running the show, just under a different name.


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## Toxic (Mar 1, 2007)

VolcomX311 said:


> Thats very true, but same people running the show, just under a different name.


Not at all, SF is run by Scott Coker not Gary Shaw. Scott Coker is one of the few guys doing mma that Dana White has actually even said has an honest interest in the sport and not just in it for the money like Shaw.


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## Wookie (Jul 20, 2008)

I don't think that SF puts on anywhere near the caliber of shows that Pride did. I really don't like the SF production at all though. They really need to fire their whole production staff and start over.


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

Toxic said:


> Not at all, SF is run by Scott Coker not Gary Shaw. Scott Coker is one of the few guys doing mma that Dana White has actually even said has an honest interest in the sport and not just in it for the money like Shaw.


I stand corrected.


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## enceledus (Jul 8, 2007)

Saenchai said:


> I think Pride is more comparable with UFC then with Strikeforce. Actually Pride had better fight cards then UFC and i mean nowadays UFC cus back when Pride was alive UFC was irrelevant compared to Pride! Beside, most of dominant fighters in UFC came from Pride. As for Strikeforce since it's Strikeforce that this thread is about, I say no, strikeforce will never be on Pride's level! They can't even put reasonable fights together (ex: fedor beats rogers, rogers gets title shot...or fedor loses to werdum and wants title shot, and he would get it if overeem wasn't in for k-1 fights this year!)


Most of the UFCs dominant fighters came from Pride!? Dominant implies unbeaten or unbeaten in a long time. Yes shogun has the lhw belt, but he hasn't defended it.... Far from dominant. Who else in the UFC is dominant and from Pride? Not wandy, not either of the nog brothers, not Rampage. Who am I missing?


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## joshua7789 (Apr 25, 2009)

enceledus said:


> Most of the UFCs dominant fighters came from Pride!? Dominant implies unbeaten or unbeaten in a long time. Yes shogun has the lhw belt, but he hasn't defended it.... Far from dominant. Who else in the UFC is dominant and from Pride? Not wandy, not either of the nog brothers, not Rampage. Who am I missing?


Anderson Silva.


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## VolcomX311 (Aug 18, 2009)

joshua7789 said:


> Anderson Silva.


The most dominant one of them all.


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## kantowrestler (Jun 6, 2009)

So if Anderson Silva is the one ring, who are the three elf rings, the seven dwarf rings, and the nine rings of men who's owners became the nazgul?


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## UFC_OWNS (Jul 7, 2010)

kantowrestler said:


> So if Anderson Silva is the one ring, who are the three elf rings, the seven dwarf rings, and the nine rings of men who's owners became the nazgul?


stupid


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## xeberus (Apr 23, 2007)

i thought i answered this already.

no.


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## UFC_OWNS (Jul 7, 2010)

xeberus said:


> i thought i answered this already.
> 
> no.


we all did, but it failed, where is hexrei to end this thread


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## xeberus (Apr 23, 2007)

needs to be a mercy ending imo ;D


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## UFC_OWNS (Jul 7, 2010)

xeberus said:


> needs to be a mercy ending imo ;D


like a shadow knight decapitating a villian ending, ill get the picture when someone is about to end the thread


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## xeberus (Apr 23, 2007)

UFC_OWNS said:


> like a shadow knight decapitating a villian ending, ill get the picture when someone is about to end the thread


if you keep responding to me... ill take it as a sign of sexual interest ;D


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## UFC_OWNS (Jul 7, 2010)

xeberus said:


> if you keep responding to me... ill take it as a sign of sexual interest ;D


then you have recieved my sexual interest then:laugh:


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## xeberus (Apr 23, 2007)

mhmm baby! ;D


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## kantowrestler (Jun 6, 2009)

Oolalalala! Who is this sweet hotty?:thumb02:


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## swpthleg (Dec 31, 2006)

kantowrestler said:


> Oolalalala! Who is this sweet hotty?:thumb02:


IDK. Try posting about her in the hot girl thread.


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## kantowrestler (Jun 6, 2009)

But she probably isn't involved in MMA!


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## UFC86 (May 21, 2010)

i think strikeforce st louis Hendo vs Babalu two definetly gave merit to Strikeforce...


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## kantowrestler (Jun 6, 2009)

The only problem is that Strikeforce is so inconsistant. If Strikeforce were to consistantly put on cards like yesterday that made sense from a contenders stand point and expand their roster than they could actually compete with the UFC. As it is Coker is too much of a kiss-up!


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