Pride 31, AWESOME show, (Video included)

[Julius Seeker]

There were a lot of really good fights considering the card on paper didn't look as good as recent events. The video below is the highly anticipated fight between Mark Coleman and Mauricio Rua.

For a bit of background information:

Mark "The Hammer" Coleman is a legend in both MMA and amateur wrestling. He's the same age as Randy Couture and Ken Shamrock, age 42. Back in the 90's he was UFC World Heavyweight Champion. In 2000 he won the PRIDE GP. Recently he has dropped down in weight from 245 pounds to 224 pounds; which puts him at a smaller size than Rua. Coleman is coming off of a victory which came at under 1 minute at the last PRIDE, but due to injuries wearing him down, most of his fights recently have ended in defeat. However, he has said injuries are not a problem anymore and that his lower weight does not mean he has lost any of his strength (that he is known for).

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. A young up and comer, has scored 12 victories and only one loss (early in his career) with 11 of those being by KO or TKO. Last year, 2005, he won the PRIDE GP after defeating Ricardo Arona. He trains with Vanderlei Silva in the style of Chute boxing primarilly. This guy is quite an amazing athlete at the age of 24 and already a large resume to back him up. It'll be exciting to see what the future holds for him. In this fight he outweighs Coleman by 3 pounds, at 227. Both of them are 6'1.

Here is the fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4yjv5yrCek

[Kupek]

Jesus. Crazy. I won't ruin it for people.

I didn't realize Rua was up to 227. He normally fights at 205. I don't know if he normally trains at that weight and cuts it, or if he added it in acitipiation of getting in the ring with someone as physically strong as Coleman.

[Ishamael]

Ouch. I'm suprised stuff like that doesn't happen more often. And what's with the guy coming from Rua's corner at the end? What was he yapping about?

[Julius Seeker]

Ouch. I'm suprised stuff like that doesn't happen more often. And what's with the guy coming from Rua's corner at the end? What was he yapping about?

*minor spoilers below*






That was Ninja Rua, he was probably yelling something angry in portugese. Wanderlei Silva also jumped in the ring and Coleman got sucker-punched a few times. Baroni jumped in on Coleman's side as well. This wasn't shown in the video above, but Coleman had a good interview after the fight; he was pissed about being suckerpunched and rolled his eyes at the knowledge that all Team Chute Boxing received was a yellow card. It was just funny watching that interview "Ninja! Motherfucking Silva! They BOTH fucking suckered my ass! Cheap motherfukers!" The press who was standing around, waiting for interviews, looked QUITE afraid =) He ended the interview still full of emotion by saying this was for his daughters, and thanking all of those who had faith in him (calling those who bet the house against him dumbasses: "don't EVER bet the house against me"). He finished by joking around telling people not to call him an old man, that he may be losing his hair but he isn't that old. It was a really fun interview, but it's not available on Youtube yet.

[Kupek]

Sherdog has it:
http://www.sherdog.com/videos/videos.asp?v_id=577

I also read there that Rua is looking to move up into the heavyweight category for good. Apparently both the Pride organization and his team want him to do it in order to avoid conflict with Silva.

[Julius Seeker]

That's a different interview; I think that one was from later on in the day. The one I am talking about was immediately after the fight.

He does look like he's in a very good mood in that video that you posted though =P

[Julius Seeker]

There was a UFC PPV on last night, I caught part of it. It involved several of my favourite fighters in the UFC. They did the whole "Canada vs. USA" theme, and it ended off in 4 wins for each team. It was a fairly dumb gimmick though because all it did was make for an even ruder crowd (like UFC crowds ever are respectful anyways, worst crowds in any MMA promotion).

Loiseau got completely dominated by Franklin, it went the distance to a decision after 5 rounds.

BJ Penn put out a good effort for the first 2-3 minutes of the fight landing a few jabs and bloodied GSP's (George St. Pierre's) nose with a grazing uppercut. GSP just overpowered him throughout almost the whole fight, being the aggressor about 98% of the time, and won the decision. GSP showed tremendous heart, he got thumbed in the eye after about 30-40 seconds and literally could barely see for the rest of the first round (unfortunate since an injury like that can mess up a guys round, which it did with GSP). I don't know why Penn didn't get any point deductions for that. It was a close fight overall, but it just looked like Penn was out of gas after the first few minutes. Either one of these guys can beat Matt Hughes, looks like GSP is the new #1 contender (probably for later on in the year, since Hughes is fighting Royce Gracie next). It'll be an interesting fight, I don't think Hughes will be able to avoid fighting both of these guys, if he beats GSP then Penn will be up next for the title, if GSP beats him, then Penn will be up against him next for a #1 contenders match. I have a feeling that if it wasn't for the eyepoke GSP would have won all three rounds.

In the end they booed GSP, then they booed BJ Penn, and then there were even boos for Matt Hughes (he got the most boos), talk about a bad disrespectful crowd. The crowd ruined the PPV atmosphere in my opinion. Overall, PRIDE 31 was a much better show. It's nice seeing the young guys in UFC fight it out, but it's a whole different level of excitement when you are watching living legends battle it out in PRIDE.

"- Tito Ortiz vs Forrest Griffin
- Tim Sylvia vs Andrei Arlovski
- Gabriel Gonzaga vs Brad Imes
- David Terrell vs Scott Smith
- Trevor Prangley vs Chael Sonnen
- Evan Tanner vs Jeremy Horn
- Karo Parisyan vs Nick Thompson
- Thiago Alves vs Drew Fickett
- Nick Diaz vs Sean Sherk"

This is the card for UFC 50. It's unconfirmed at the moment, but it looks like it could be interesting, this one has a lot of names on it.