Pride Coming to the US?

[KRJMAA]

On Sherdog:
" The California State Athletic Commision today voted unanimously to approve amendments allowing use of a roped enclosure for mixed martial arts reports Sherdog.com editor Josh Gross.

This amended legislation, pending approval in Sacramento, will take between 45-120 days to finalize. Stay tuned to Sherdog.com for detailed analysis, including how this impacts plans for DSE to promote in the Golden State "

Pride has previously mentioned that they were interested in holding events in the US but only in a ring. Could this mean that it's only a matter of time before they invade our shores. This is definetly a big step. This also makes it more likely that a Sakuraba/F.Shamrock or Wanderlei/F.Shamrock fight will occur. But is this also a step in the right direction towards getting some of the dream match ups that have been mention in other post? I hope so.

[Dennis Monk]

Thanks for posting this Rene. I had not heard anything about that as of yet. It really will be interesting to see if they can make it happen. I wonder what kind of back door deals the Yakuza had to make to pull this off. :up:

[DungeonWorks]

I read it on Sherdog's news area and MMA Weekly. I would guess that soccer kicks would be disallowed, but maybe not. I don't understand why Pride has them and bans elbows anyways, aside the cut stoppages.

I just hope this becomes a nationally accepted sport. I'd love to see the day when MMA stats are on the sports pages of our "collective and respective" hometown papers and on the news. Once Cali does it, others should follow. The dream is very much alive still.

[Luebbers]

That's exciting news. I'm still not sure how Pride feels about the rules, though. I don't think that the CSAC will conform to Pride's standard rules.

Also, the main reason they don't allow elbows isn't so much for injury as excitement. It's to prevent fights from being stopped prematurely due to cuts. They allow kicks and stomps on the ground, because you are less likely to become trapped in a ringed enclosure. In the UFC, if you are pinned agains the fence and someone stomps your head, there is no place for your head to go and you just absorb the impace. In a ringed enclosure, since it's more open, your less likely to get seriously injured by a kick or stomp on the ground.

[DungeonWorks]

That's exciting news. I'm still not sure how Pride feels about the rules, though. I don't think that the CSAC will conform to Pride's standard rules.

Also, the main reason they don't allow elbows isn't so much for injury as excitement. It's to prevent fights from being stopped prematurely due to cuts. They allow kicks and stomps on the ground, because you are less likely to become trapped in a ringed enclosure. In the UFC, if you are pinned agains the fence and someone stomps your head, there is no place for your head to go and you just absorb the impace. In a ringed enclosure, since it's more open, your less likely to get seriously injured by a kick or stomp on the ground.


Makes sense...I never looked at it that way before. I understand the elbows. Some UFC guys have the "cut stoppage" TKO down to a science and that sucks. I wouldn't mind seeing them eliminated on the ground for that reason.

[Mark Barlow]

I've been watching the Pride fights on Fox Sports and I have to admit that I'm impressed with the technique many of the fighters are demonstrating. Since Fox is showing mostly highlights, we're obviously not seeing the bottom rung of competitors but from what I saw, they're better than a lot of the UFC fighters.

[Luebbers]

I've been watching the Pride fights on Fox Sports and I have to admit that I'm impressed with the technique many of the fighters are demonstrating. Since Fox is showing mostly highlights, we're obviously not seeing the bottom rung of competitors but from what I saw, they're better than a lot of the UFC fighters.

Welcome to Pride! Most, not all, hardcore MMA fans agree that Pride has the higher caliber fighters, in general. They've pretty much got the corner on the good HW fighters, most of the good LHW, about even on MW, no WW, and a very competitive LW stable.

[DungeonWorks]

Welcome to Pride! Most, not all, hardcore MMA fans agree that Pride has the higher caliber fighters, in general. They've pretty much got the corner on the good HW fighters, most of the good LHW, about even on MW, no WW, and a very competitive LW stable.

I am warming to the Pride rules over the UFC rules....notably the elbow rules. I think, in my opinion anyways, that Pride rules in a UFC cage or even an octagon ring as used by that pro wrestling company TNA would provide the ultimate in MMA competition. The cage is kind of catering to the ground and pound style and constrains striker, the square ring is better for strikers and allows for more advantages to the striker cutting off and cornering an opponent while causing too many restarts for a grappler. The octagon ring kind of offers a better spacial relation for elusiveness and maybe is a good medium for all styles??? Just a thought/opinion of course. The corners of an octagon ring are less sharp angled and less trapping, offering more exits to a cornered opponent...IMHO. I'd be interested to see an MMA bout in one. Are their any MMA org's that use one?

[AllanJGAnderson]

I say, no more octogan, no cage, no ring. Just a elevated earthen platform. Like in blood sport. And we get a moat around it, filled with
A.) Pointy spikes for undercard matches
and
B.) Molten lava for proffesional bouts.

[Luebbers]

Obviously the ideal fighting envinronment would be an infinite empty space, like the construct in the Matrix.

Unfortunately, bounded by reality we have to make compromises. I've heard of some organizations using an octagonal ring, which would be interesting. You nailed exactly when you said that the ring makes it easier for strikers to cut people off, but the cage can be used to pin someone down. However, the cage can also be used to help you get up (a la' Chuck Liddell). The restarts to the center of the ring when the fighters get too close to the edge are good for freedom of movement, but I don't like how they stop the pace of the action. But, again, there's no perfect arena, I guess.

Also, someone recently did the numbers on cuts stoppages due to elbows and it's actually startlingly low. The number of stoppages that were "cheap" so to speak is even lower. It seems like there has been an increase lately, so perhaps fighters are learning how to use those elbows more efficiently. That just means the guy on bottom has to learn to defend better.