The Shrine

Details: There will be a major press conference held in Tokyo tomorrow on the subject. Pride was having some major difficulties in the US when Ed Fishman made an attempt to block the promotion from coming back to Vegas (he was the guy they knew with all the connections, he is a bigtime Casino mogul who essentially knows nothing about MMA). This problem, as well as Pride's Yakuza connection problems, have been solved with this purchase. The promotion is back on track in re-establishing its lost television deals (which were costing them tens of millions of dollars per year).

Pride FC will not be run by Zuffa or UFC, or merged with them in any way, as were the previous rumours. Instead Pride will be run by a separate Japanese based company which will replace DSE. There will be one major cross-promotion show ever year between UFC and Pride. I expect all rule sets to remain the same, but I guess this will be found out with tomorrow's press conference. Roster adjustments will be quite interesting.

This year, there are 3 scheduled Pride USA shows which will be held (they had originally been cancelled due to the Fishman scandal); after that, it is hard to say if Pride will become wholely focussed on Japan while UFC remains North American focussed, or if they will constinue to schedule shows outside of Japan. If they do, I think this is a great opportunity for the growth of the sport on an international level. What I want to see is UFC fighters now able to take part in the Pride GP tournaments, this can happen now without much worry.

Not much new news in todays press conference. Essentially it was everything that I said above with the addition of the news that Lorenzo Fertitta himself is assuming the position as President of the company. Lorenzo and his brother Frank also own Zuffa (the parent company of UFC, WFA, and WEC, its president and recognized face is Dana White) and several Vegas casinos which employ over 10,000 people.

The Fertittas are both billionairs and are very much a fan of fighting, they are both dedicated to the growth of the sport on a worldwide level and hope to see it soon reach the popularity of other sports such as baseball and football/soccer.

MMA's the future, man. Been meaning to watch some more videos.

It's oddly inspiring to my workouts. I've been practicing capoeira again, which I think is so totally underrated...

Anything rules-wise preventing a capoeirista from joining Pride or whatnot? There's a really pretty hardcore side of Capoeira that doesn't get shown off a lot...I know it's not usually considered to be a fighting skill on par with Gracie Ju-Jitsu or whatnot, but I've seen some fucked up videos of capoeira fights. My old teacher got his ribs broken by a cabecada (full-body headbutt) once in a fight, and he showed it to us at one point.

There are some really pretty down and dirty capoeira fighters out there. And those spinning kicks get *fast* and very, very strong if you practice enough. I'd be interested to see how one of the really hardcore guys stacks up to, say, Cro Cop.

If you haven't seen it used in an MMA match, it's probably not practical.

There are international regulations against headbutts. Capoeira though? It was one of those martial arts forms (along with Kung Fu, Karate, and Taekwondo) which were popular during the 70's and 80's that didn't really make it past the mid 90's in MMA. Fighters like Dan Severn who were good in wrestling would take out Capoeira fighters with ease; a good example is Mark Kerr's quick victory over Mestre Hulk.

Though GSP, who is a karate based MMA fighter, has become one of the most dominant fighters in the sport today, suffering only a single defeat at the age of 22 against Matt Hughes (who is widely regarded as one of the best); and then completely dominating Hughes in a rematch last year. Katate is still very rare, but GSP has proven that it can be incredibly effective when correctly implemented. GSP practices Kyokushin Karate, a style which was VERY popular during the 80's largely thanks to Dolph Lundgren: if you took Karate as a kid, this was probably the style you practiced.

Capoeira though, I personally feel it is an amazing martial art, and I would love to learn it myself. Here is a clip from Lateef Crowder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB6ylODLoeE

Yeah, Capoeira really lacks a grappling tradition. I feel it's weaker for it.

I didn't know that it was ever practiced in MMA. Thanks for the info.