[Comment deleted] Any company from any country would had failed at saving Pride. The whole fight business in Japan is tainted by Japanese mobs. Once Pride’s ties to the Yakuza were exposed, the promotion lost its TV deal with Fuji and was fucked. (No other TV network in Japan would touch them, even with the ratings that Pride brought in.) There was no way in hell for Zuffa to find a new TV deal in Japan just to make enough money to keep Pride alive. Hell, the best Zuffa can do in Japan was to get the same deal that they had before with WOWOW, which is the equivalent to HBO, maybe even less so.

Just in case you haven’t noticed ([comment deleted]) the Japanese fight scene has been on the downward slide. I just read reports of K-1 wanting to sell off Dream due to its piss-poor ratings and inability to generate money. In fact Dream has been bleeding money from the start.

As much as I loved Pride, Pride is dead. You’ve had more than enough time to mourn it. Right now the UFC is the IT promotion in MMA. Unless you are one of the few that is either pretty well off or can command his own salary, like Fedor, every other fighter has the desire to be in the UFC because that’s where the money is right now. It doesn’t matter how you feel about UFC, Dana, or anyone else, the UFC is putting on the best fights because it currently holds most of the best talent. It’s okay to watch and support the other smaller promotions, which I do myself, but [comment deleted]! You may as well just give up watching MMA.

Admin note: This isn’t Sherdog. Verbally berating others will not be tolerated.

As far as them trying to keep PRIDE going in Japan, is there proof of that beyond White just saying they did? I don’t recall there being any, although I could be wrong. If not, considering half the stuff that comes out of Dana’s mouth, I don’t think his word alone is enough. If they honestly did make their best effort and it didn’t work out, that would not surprise me though. Also, I’m not an expert on setting up separate companies for the purpose of purchasing another, but I would imagine there could be a hundred different reasons why they did it like that.

What Dana’s saying is that DSE was was being wishy-washy (at best) about the deal, frequently leading Zuffa to believe that the deal was done only to turn around and negotiate with other potential buyers. In signing Cro Cop, Zuffa wasn’t trying to kill PRIDE in the sense that DSE alleges; they were trying to weaken it to the point that DSE’d have no choice but to finally just sell the damn thing to Zuffa, who would then (ideally) rebuild it as a separate “brand,” if you will.

Everyone conveniently forgets that they tried like hell to make it work after first buying it (they even went to the trouble of setting up a separate company for it to keep UFC and PRIDE under different corporate umbrellas). But the Japanese landscape is such that it simply couldn’t work; an ostensibly Japanese company being completely owned and operated by Americans is a tough sell, even before you get into the stupid “PRIDE vs. UFC, us vs. them” mentality that so many fans unfortunately have.

Admin – I don’t care if people cuss, but not if it’s used to bash a fighter, promoter, etc.