The Pride Fighting Paper Champions

A Championship Belt is the symbol of the best fighter in the organization by division. For all the negativity the UFC has received, Dana White has done a wonderful job at making sure the UFC Champions are the best fighters (in the UFC) in their respective weight class. With the exception of the Matt Lindland fiasco a few years ago, every single fighter who deserves a title shot has been given one if they continue to beat their opponents. Sadly, the same thing can't be said about the Pride "Champions".

PRIDE HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE

• Pride Heavyweight Champion: Fedor Emelianenko
• Pride 2006 Absolute Grand Prix Champion: Mirko Filipovic
  

This is Pride's only legitimate champion. He is the best Heavyweight in the world. His name is Fedor Emelianenko. Sadly, he might not be in Pride in 2007. And for Fedor fans, his lack of a meaningful opponents is not good. Here is the scorecard:

• Mirko Filipovic (8/28/05) - The last meaningful opponent for Fedor.
• Zulu (12/31/05) - Scrub.
• Mark Coleman (10/21/06) - Washed Up.
  
• Mark Hunt (12/31/06) - Hunt isn't even Top 5 in Pride.
  
• Jeff Monson (3/3/07) - Taking place for Bodog Fight.
  

Fedor's next contest after the Monson fight will probably not take place until at least June '07. That will make at least a 22-Month gap between Top Level Opponents. And that is IF he actually fights a legit contender in June '07.


PRIDE MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE

• Pride Middleweight Champion: Wanderlei Silva
• Pride Lineal Middleweight Champion: Mauricio Rua
• Pride 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix Champion: Mauricio Rua
  

The splintering of this division was created on August 28, 2005. On this night, Ricardo Arona defeated Wanderlei Silva (non-title) in the Semi-Finals of the Grand Prix Tournament. Later that night, Mauricio Rua defeated Ricardo Arona to become the 2006 Middleweight Grand Prix Champion.

In the 15 months that have passes since that night, Pride has showcased exactly one fight in an attempt to unfracture the division. This fight happened nearly one year ago at Shockwave '05 when Wanderlei Silva defeated Ricardo Arona in a Championship Fight by split decision. The year 2006 has seen no attempt to rectify the problems in the division. Wanderlei Silva was busy fighting Heavyweights. Ricardo Arona only had one fight against Alistair Overeem. And the real champion of the division, Mauricio Rua, got injured at Heavyweight and then beat two non-Top 20 "contenders".

Sadly, the issues in this division will have to wait even longer. Wanderlei Silva is not scheduled to defend his title until the next Pride USA show on February 23, 2007. No opponent has been announced yet.


PRIDE WELTERWEIGHT TITLE

• Pride Welterweight Champion: Dan Henderson
• Pride Lineal Welterweight Champion: Paulo Filho
• Pride 2006 Welterweight Grand Prix Champion: Kazuo Misaki
  

Shockwave 2005 unified the Welterweight Division and gave fans the first Pride Welterweight Champion. In 2006, we saw the unraveling of the division and a fractured title picture. Here is a quick scorecare:

• Dan Henderson vs. Kazuo Misaki 1 - Dan Henderson wins.
  
• Dan Henderson vs. Kazuo Misaki 2 - Kazuo Misaki wins in a Non-Title tournament bout.
  
• Paulo Filho vs. Kazuo Misaki - Paulo Filho dominates Kazuo Misaki.
• Paulo Filho - Cannot continue in the tournament.
  
• Kazuo Misaki vs. Denis Kang - Misaki, who lost earlier in the day, defeated a hurt (and game) Denis Kang to win the 2006 Grand Prix.
  

Now we have Dan Henderson & Kazuo Misaki with championship belts. And the #1 Pride Welterweight, Paulo Filho, without one.

Pride's ability to bring a true champion to this division is very simple. Dan Henderson fights Kazuo Misaki in the 3rd encounter for the Welterweight Championship. Paulo Filho fights Denis Kang to determine the #1 Contender. The winners of these two fights compete for the championship to determine the best in Pride at 183 lbs. With Denis Kang taking off the rest of the year due to injury, this formula would have to wait until 2007.


PRIDE LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE

• Pride Lightweight Champion: Takanori Gomi
• Pride Lineal Lightweight Champion: Mitsuhiro Ishida
  

Takanori Gomi ended 2005 as the Pride Lightweight Champion. He started off 2006 being choked out in a non-title fight against Marcus Aurelio. To make things more complicated, Aurelio lost his next fight to Mitsuhiro Ishida. Despite coming off a loss, Marcus Aurelio was given a title shot against Takanori Gomi. In a rather boring (and very close) contest, Takanori Gomi retained the Lightweight Championship.

As a fan, the equation becomes very easy. Let Gomi (Champion) fight Ishida (Lineal) for the title and everything will be good. A few days ago, Pride announced the Gomi vs. Ishida fight. Only one problem. IT ISN'T FOR THE TITLE. If Ishida wins, this will only complicate the division even more. And what about Aurelio? He deserves a rubber match with Gomi at some point as well.

FINAL THOUGHT

With the exception of Fedor Emelianenko, who hasn't defended his title for over 15 months, each Pride champion is a paper champion. The fanboys will defend Pride . However, an object fan will notice that these matchmaking practices make the sport of boxing look credible.

MMA on DVD

Here is a list of upcoming releases:

• UFC 58: Franklin vs. Loiseau - 12/12/06
  
• UFC: Ultimate Knockouts 4 - 12/12/06
• Wanderlei Silva's Greatest Hits - 12/12/06
  
• Pride Bushido 7: Gomi vs. Azeredo - 01/16/07
• Pride Shockwave '05: Silva vs. Arona 2 - 01/16/07
  
• UFC 59: Arlovski vs. Sylvia 2 - 01/30/07
  
• UFC 60: Gracie vs. Hughes - 01/30/07
• UFC 7: Shamrock vs. Taktarov - 01/30/07
• UFC 8: Shamrock vs. Kimo - 01/30/07
• UFC 51 & UFC 52 Combo Pack - 02/06/07

UFC 57 is still only available through UFC.com. The Ultimate Ulimate '95 has been skipped over, as it took place between UFC 7 & 8. Hopefully they release the event at some point. The are no upcoming release dates for the last 3 "Ultimate Fighter" Series.

MMA: The Splintering of a Sport

In the year 2000, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was sold to Zuffa, owned by Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta III. The brothers had a long history in the sport of boxing, with Lorenzo serving as the commissioner of the Nevada State Athletic Commission from November 1996 to July 2000. At the time, the small and loyal fan base cheered the change of ownership. As a fan of the sport, I feared that the "boxing men" would turn my beloved sport into another version of boxing. I guess it is only ironic that I now feel that Zuffa is our greatest hope in bringing organization and structure to Mixed Martial Arts. Let me explain....

When Zuffa purchased the UFC in 2000, MMA was a sport on the brink of extinction. In the United States, it was impossible to even purchase a UFC PPV unless you owned a dish. In Japan, Pride Fighting Championship was just becoming a popular entity with the famous 2000 Grand Prix taking place and the memorable 90-Minute legendary fight between Kazushi Sakuraba and Royce Gracie. Over the next few years, Pride continued to gain poplarity and the UFC struggled to attraction a mainstream audience.

In 2005, the sport completely changed. The debut of The Ultimate Fighter Reality Series brought in a legion of casual fans, and gave the UFC mainstream access through the cable station SpikeTV. It was a great time for fans of the sport. Over the next 18-Months, the landscape of the MMA scene has changed internationally. The two major companies are now going in completely opposite directions. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is pulling in 500,000+ PPV buys and is trying to break into the international markets in countries like Brazil & United Kingdom. Pride FC's future is in doubt after being removed from free TV in Japan. At the same time, we are starting to see a SPLINTERING OF THE SPORT like has never been seen before. These new organizations are typically being created by non-MMA people who have a lot of money and see an opportunity to cash in on a now popular entity. Here is the list of the bigger MMA organizations that have attempted to break into the sport recently:

• Bodog Fight: Started by Calvin Arye, the billionaire who earned his riches through an online gambling site. It has been reported that Bodog Fight has signed Fedor Emelianenko, the #1 Heavyweight in MMA.
  
• International Fight League: The first MMA "Team Fight League" featured on FSN.
  
• World Fighting Alliance: PPV oriented company, featuring Quinton Jackson, Matt Lindland, Heath Herring, and Ryoto Machida. Rectently postponed the December 9th PPV event.
  
• Strikeforce: California based MMA promotion featuring Paul Buentello, Frank Shamrock, Cung Le, & Josh Thomson.
  
• Showtime TV: Coming in February 2007, fans will now have 4 to 6 fight cards a year on this station.
  

How can this be bad for the sport? It's very simple. These newer organizations are splintering the sport. More than ever, we have Top 10 Level fighters competing with exclusive contracts to a variety of organizations. Based on past history, the majority of these companies end up going out of business over time. Look at the World Fighting Alliance as proof for this. The WFA signed "big fight deals" to fighters like Quinton Jackson, Ryoto Machida, Matt Lindland, and others. At first, this seems like a great thing. Fighters earning more money. How can that be a bad thing? Well, it is. The WFA put on one event, and has now postponed their second event. So now we have fighters signed exclusively to a fight organization that isn't even putting on fights. The UFC doesn't even have a chance of signing these fighters. So instead of seeing attractive match-ups like Quinton Jackson vs. Chuck Liddell 2, we get Quinton Jackson not fighting for over 6 months. How is this good for the sport? And don't blame the UFC for this. It has been reported that Rampage's agent might not have been getting all of the offers to his client (including Zuffa's).

A the end of the day, I find myself rooting for these new organizations to fail. I want to unify the sport. Not splinter it like a cheap boxing knockoff. It is for this reason that I find myself rooting for the Fertitta Brothers and the UFC. I hope they dominate the majority of the competition. I hope these want-a-be MMA organizations lose their money and stop splintering the sport I love. I want to be able to say that we have one World Champion for each weight class. That shouldn't be too much to ask for as a fan of Mixed Martial Arts.

PRIDE FC's New Format

According to MMAWeekly.com:

1. The Pride Bushido series is being cancelled.
2. The regular Pride FC events will now feature all 4 weight classes.
3. The Pride Grand Prix will only be featured once a year, with each weight class being used every 4 years. The Middleweight (205) or Lightweight (160) weight classes will be used next year.
   
4. Pride Champions will defend their titles on a more regular basis, with at least 1 title fight per card.
   

Here are my thoughts:

1. Pride Bushido: Typically was my favorite MMA show. I am sad to see it go. Hopefully the Welterweight & Lightweight weight classes are still showcased on the big shows.
2. Weight Divisions: With Pride putting on events in America, how are they going to work out the weight class differences? The Welterweight Division is 183 lbs. The Lightweight Division is 160 lbs. If they defend their titles in America, they will have to do so at 185 & 155 pounds respectively. Something needs to change.
   
3. Grand Prix: I like the format change. I firmly believe the 2006 Welterweight Grand Prix suffered from a Grand Prix the previous year.
   
4. Increase Title Fights: FINALLY!! A much needed format change. Champions should defend their belt 3 to 4 times a year. And no more Gomi/Aurelio/Ishida fiascos.
   

Overall, this is a step in the right direction for Pride. Now they just need a major Japanese television station and an 800% increase in viewership in America. NO PROBLEM!!!

Pride FC Rankings - December 2006

With the next Pride event not taking place until the end of December, I am posting the December 2006 Pride FC Rankings.

Heavyweight (205 lbs +): Fedor Emelianenko

1. Mirko Filipovic
   
2. Josh Barnett
   
3. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
   
4. Fabricio Werdum
   
5. Aleksander Emelianenko
   

Middleweight (205 lbs): Vanderlei Silva

1. Mauricio Rua
   
2. Ricardo Arona
   
3. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
   
4. Kazuhiro Nakamura
   
5. Alistair Overeem
   

Welterweight (183 lbs): Dan Henderson

1. Paulo Filho
   
2. Kazuo Misaki
   
3. Denis Kang
   
4. Akihiro Gono
   
5. Gegard Mousasi
   

Lightweight (160 lbs): Takanori Gomi

1. Mitsuhiro Ishida
   
2. Tatsuya Kawajiri
   
3. Joachim Hansen
   
4. Hayato Sakurai
   
5. Marcus Aurelio