Pride FC open weight grand prix finals on sunday

[Tae-Bo]

watch this shit fellas, it's gonna be the best event in the past 10 years.

seriously like 6 of the 9 fights are good enough to be main events.

they're finishing up the open weight tournament, started with 16 of the best fighters from all weight classes (excluding fedor because his injured hand isn't healed yet)

tournament fights:

1. Mirko Crocop vs. Wanderlei Silva: two unreal strikers... wanderlei is the only non-heavyweight left in the tournament and imho he has a good chance to win. Crocop is probably the best technical striker out there, but he doesn't have the aggression of wanderlei. wanderlei is gonna keep pushing and draw crocop into his game. crocop's ground game is also weak so if wand gets in trouble he can try to take him down. hard to predict what will happen but i hope wand wins - crocop has better odds tho according to the betting sites. high chance of being the fight of the night.

2. Josh Barnett vs. antonio rodrigo nogueira: two of the best heavyweight grapplers in the world. I hope barnett wins but it's gonna be hard, nogueira has only lost to Fedor. Whoever wins this fight will most likely win the tourny, i think.

3. whoever the winners are of these two fights will face eachother at the end of the night.

4. Alternate bout: alexander emelianenko vs. sergei kharitonov: two big scary russians with unreal hands. this is gonna be one of the best fights of the night. Fedors little brother will win by devastating knockout, i hope.

here's alexander in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogli541OG8Q

non-tourny fights

5. kazuhiro nakamura vs. nakao yoshihiro: i dont really care about these guys - nakamura will probably win. the only thing nakao is notable for is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EZ6R42N6os

6. nishijima yosuke vs. evangelista cyborg: nishijima is an unreal boxer, cyborg is a crazy ass brawler from wanderlei's training camp. nishijima has an iron jaw and i think he will win. this fight could also steal the show.

7. mauricio shogun rua vs. cyrille diabate: shogun is coming off a bad elbow injury, and this is cyrille's first pride fight. Cyrille is a muay thai fighter, he prolly doesnt have much of a ground game. i expect shogun to win by devastating KO, and hopefully some brutal stomps to the face. this is another main-eventer. i hope it looks something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbrM7k-u8s

8: ricardo arona vs. alistair overeem: ANOTHER main-eventer. arona is a dangerous grappler with good standup, alistair is an ok grappler with unreal stand-up... if overeem has better cardio than his last fights then it'll be a close fight, if not, arona will win. arona is the only guy in pride to ever beat wanderlei in his own weight class (the other guy to beat him outweighed him by 90 lbs. and is a k-1 kickboxing champ [mark hunt, another one of my fav. fighters]). dont miss this fight.

9. ricardo morais vs. lee tae hyun: freakshow match with two giant fuckers. lee tae hyun is basically a korean sumo champ... morais is a 6'8 270 lb giant who is famous for being knocked the fuck out by alexander in that video above. dumb fight prolly.



so yeah, DONT MISS THIS SHOW IT'S GONNA BE UNREAL

(oh and chuck liddell sucks)

[Spazz]

I think the ice man would take the axe murderer the fuck out silva looks like he gets to " intense" and losed his head. Also a cage makes a better place to fight than a ring. I might order this shit i havent decided. I think your just a pide fan boi homie and cant stand to admit theres awsome fighters besides the pride crew.

[Tae-Bo]

eh there's about 4 or 5 other guys in diff orgs worth watching (and chuck is one of the better ones but he is still extremely one dimensional) also i can't stand anyone with that kinda dumbass haircut - the thing with wand is that he can follow a gameplan, it's obvious the situations where chuck gets his big hits (retards like renato did exactly what he wants them to do)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... kson&hl=en


and a cage is just redneck shit and favors wrestlers/lay n pray fags big time. pinning someone up against it and raining elbows isn't exactly a science. yeah fuck tito.

i used to be into ufc but i seriously can't remember the last time i didn't feel robbed after paying for one of their PPV's. then i started watching pride and it felt like i was actually watching a real sport and not some freakshow for people who feel WWF isn't hardcore enough.

[Spazz]

some freakshow for people who feel WWF isn't hardcore enough.

Thats really funny to me. Chuck liddel is a great fighter dude. What you dont like him cuz he doesnt like to wrestle ?

[Tae-Bo]

uhh how'd you get that out of what i wrote

i dont like him cus in the past 3 years since his loss he's beaten an overrated wrestler, a nobody, an over-the-hill wrestler (twice), an ok but not-a-top grappler, and another ok grappler who rushed him like a retard. and now all of a sudden all of the people who know nothing about the sport think he's the best 205er of all time. put him in with someone who can actually strike and he'll be owned.


oh yeah and he just plain looks stupid

tho it's not his fault that he doesn't have any good competition, ufc just can't afford the top guys

his strengths are 1. hard counter-punching 2. takedown defense

wanderlei would just plain outstrike him, shogun would too. rampage did the same thing and he's not even a striker.

[Harrison]

Don't argue with Spazz.

It always leaves you feeling like you need to go read a book to fill the void in HIS head before it engulfs your own.

[vonkaar]

he's beaten an overrated wrestler, a nobody, an over-the-hill wrestler (twice), an ok but not-a-top grappler, and another ok grappler who rushed him like a retard. and now all of a sudden all of the people who know nothing about the sport think he's the best 205er of all time. put him in with someone who can actually strike and he'll be owned.


oh yeah and he just plain looks stupid

All true.

I've never understood the fanboisms(new word) surrounding Liddell. He's NEVER had an impressive fight... not one. The ONLY good fight was the LOSS to Cotoure. Both of his wins on Randy came because Randy screwed up and Chuck is great at exploiting weaknesses. Randy slipped in the first loss and Liddell was all over him. In the final fight, it happened again and Chuck repeated. Every fight since then was a joke. Go back and watch Liddell's 'rise to power' and you'll see more of the same. He can't fight for SHIT whe he's on the ground. Jeremy Horn... JEREMY HORN of all people (dude is a freaking Mormon) had better grappling and choked out Liddell after 3 minutes of ground-play. IMO... the only impressive, well-rounded fight I've seen him in was against Babalu, long ago.

Liddell and Silvia are only champs because the UFC is too poor to get some real talent to show up. Silvia would be absolutely DEMOLISHED by any of 10+ guys in pride (cough, Fedor Emelianenko), and there are at least 5 'legit' contenders in the UFC for the heavyweight crown. Liddell dosen't really have much competition in the UFC but, light heavyweight is the most boring class right now... "ooh, tito ortiz vs ken shamrock... holy fuck... ":-x

The UFC's lower 2 classes have some very strong champions that I would bet on against ANY opponent. Hughes and Franklin have 'no' competition right now. If you want to be a UFC fanboi and pick a class to rally behind... Hughes is the safest bet. His life is so boring, they had to bring Gracie out of retirement just to get people to talk again. I seriously think that he'll have to 'retire' the championship pretty soon because he'll hold the title for 30+ PPV events otherwise... and there are a LOT of welterweight fighters that people care about... lots of fans out there for kids like Luke Cummo, Josh Burkman and undefeated Diego Sanchez. They are all doing well for themselves, but... against Hughes? Please. He's going to have to retire to make it interesting again.

But anyway, back on topic...

I'm going to a big football / pride party... friend is the biggest MMA fan I know. We have 5 TVs going, should be interesting.

[Diekan]

Liddell fucking OWNS.

[vonkaar]

[Diekan]

Ignore me I am just being a dick.

[Eldred]

I watch more UFC because it's a bit more readily avaibale. Athough I wish I could watch Pride more. I don't dislike Liddel but he is way over rated, get in in the ring with one good grappler and he's fucking done. One thing about Pride is they do have a TON more strikers vs UFC. UFC is very grappler heavy, and if your not someone who's acctually done grappling it is no were near as exciting as watching to guys go knock each other the fuck out. I've done grappling for 5+ years so I enjoy it as much as striking matches, but I know that's is not the norm. Huges is an amazing fighter, I'd really like to see him fight some Pride guys. And I'd like to see a few more of Diego Sancheze's & Luke Cumo's fights.

And btw Fedor Eleminchenko(sp) is a bad mother fucker. Probally the best fighter in the world atm.

[Harrison]

Hughes is easily the best all-around fighter in UFC.

I don't know enough about pride to know if he'd stand up to their best.

I'd like to see some opinionated comparisons.

[Tae-Bo]

yeah hughes is damn good, in his weight class he's prolly the best in the world. i honestly don't know much about franklin so i'm not gonna say anything about him.

the OWGP just finished, i watched a streaming korean version because they play it for free on normal TV over there... some surprises, some heartbreak :~( but i'm not gonna spoil anything. damn good show.