Spike Bringing PRIDE Back To TV
First reported by Dana White at Friday’s UFC 101 Q&A session, and officially announced Monday by Spike TV, The Best of Pride Fighting Championships series starts January 11, 2010 at 11pm on Spike. The show will be a weekly one hour series following a similar format to that of the UFC Unleashed, and will be hosted by former Maxim Magazine “Hometown Hotties” finalist Kenda Perez.
The television series will make use of the extensive library of Pride video footage that Zuffa, LLC (parent company of the UFC) purchased when it purchased the promotion back in 2007. It is expected to include footage of many of the former Pride stars that now compete inside the UFC Octagon, including Dan Henderson, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Anderson Silva, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filopovic, and Wanderlei Silva. Spike has also claimed that they will include Fedor Emelianenko in some of the broadcasts, despite his notable absence from the UFC.
This move by Zuffa was foreshadowed by Owner Lorenzo Fertitta sporting a Pride T-shirt at and around UFC 100 in early July. Since that sighting of Fertitta in the Pride paraphernalia, an official Pride store has been added to the official UFC store on the promotion’s website, and can also be reached by visiting www.pridefcstore.com. The store includes shirts, shorts, hats, and a DVD.
Perhaps Fertitta’s shirt, and the creation of the Pride store were just done in anticipation of the upcoming creation of the The Best of Pride Fighting Championships television series, or maybe all three are foreshadowing another future move by Zuffa, LLC involving the Pride banner. This author believes there may be something bigger brewing with the Pride name, but then I could be completely off base. Only time will tell if I’m right about that, but at least we get to re-watch some great fights.
Tags: Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson, Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, Quinton Jackson, Wanderlei Silva
Loading ...
F-in fantastic! More so than getting to re-watch some of my favorite fights, I think it’ll do alot for further popularizing MMA if the masses get exposed to some of these brawls that took place in Pride.
Another great move by UFC, these guys are a perpetual genius machine.
Agreed natural, I’m h3lla excited. I hope that they do bring Pride back to Japan and do more tournaments. Will Frank Trigg and Glazer be hosting this show?
I hope so too, was thinking that same thing based on Justins sneaking suspicion that something bigger may be coming with the Pride name. Man I would like to see new life breathed into Pride.
No big mystery why… I like their rules and the ring fighting. Not more than I enjoy what UFC does but its something different and seeing dudes go flying into or through the ropes has always had that special appeal. Soccer kicks can be fun as well haha. More appealing though to me is the ten minute first round, and ESPECIALLY this factor:
“Referees can give a fighter a penalty card for lack of activity. Every card, including warning cards, are a 10% deduction of a fighter’s purse, this method was aimed to prevent inaction.”
Always have been a proponent for the UFC to implement something equivalent to this…keeps the Leites’ and other jokes of the MMA world from flopping on their back or running away during a “FIGHT”.
Trigg was campaigning for the job on his Twitter page, but it appears they have opted for A hot chick instead of an ugly bald dude.
I completely agree about the yellow cards natural, that would be a great addition to the rules. We should lobby for it.
The athletic commissions in the US will not allow them to take money away from a fighter in that manner. The only time money can be taken is failure to make weight (which is then given to their opponent) or a fine for a failed drug test, and perhaps other such rule infractions.
Oh. It makes sense why they wouldn’t alow such things now that I think about it. Thanks for the info Justin.
Any particular reason a group of bureaucrats’ say so takes precedence over the actual employer when it comes to paying an employee his salary? Have seen videos of Nevada and other athletic commissions in conference and I was totally ignorant that they regulated much beyond safety regulations. Not really trying to diss what the commissioners do but geez that seems like they are all powerful wizards who have their strings tied up in every tiny detail.
1. The refs, who would be the ones to issue the yellow cards, are employed by the AC, not the promotion. 2. Part of the responsibility of the AC is to ensure that fighters actually get paid at all. This has been cited as one of the reasons Frye pulled out of Breakthrough, Kansas doesn’t have an AC to make sure M-1 pays him. 3. When a company chooses to do business in a state, they are agreeing to do business according to the rules of that state.
I think the better solution would be point deductions for non-engagement, you don’t touch the fighters’ pay(directly), which a lot of people already say isn’t high enough, but you still penalize them. But if the fighters lose because they get points deducted (which is actually in the rules already, they just need to make it a priority to enforce it) then in the long run their pay will be affected.
Thanks for the prompt info Justin. Didn’t know most of that and everything makes more sense now that I do. Also gotta say I agree both that fighters aren’t making enough as it is (especially when you contrast their salaries with that of other nationally recognized sports stars) and that hitting them on the points would be equally effective.
i was wondering when zuffa was gonna do something with the shiitload of tape they had…besides showing the same clips we see when the former pride guys are fighting…i suspected those shirts at 100 hundred werent just them tryin to be flashy hipsters…the end
ps…they should show entire tournaments the same way they show old ufc ppv’s
the end
I wonder if they purchased that extensive Affliction library, too. When will they be airing that 9 minute series?
Yeah, they did buy the Affliction library, but no idea when they’ll put together that nine minute series.
I’m happy for the PRIDE fans, happy for fans of Japanese-style shoot-fighting, and I’m all for anything that may increase the growth of MMA and it’s premiere organization, the UFC, but I’m not 100% sure that head-stomps and soccer kicks to the face are going to help the efforts of those in states trying to get MMA legalized, like NY.
My initial reaction upon hearing this was that Zuffa, and the UFC, buried PRIDE in North America and bought them for pocket change. I personally would have been fine if PRIDE had stayed buried, but maybe the extra revenue will help fuel the UFC’s international expansion.
I guess I’ll reserve final judgement until I see what sort of reception PRIDE TV gets from the MMA community…
This is f***** great news! Im psyched. Too bad January is like 5 months away hahaha. Oh well. The old Pride fights are always entertaining to watch. Cant wait.