Pride is ValeTudo!

[Dyan Kharis]

Everything is accepted. These are the minimal rules in order to find out who is the best and "to fight for the man's pride."

Anyone here love Pride Fighting Championships like I do? Gathering the World's best MMA (Mixed Martial Artists) fighters and squaring them off in a squared circled. Any and all martial arts styles represented the World over. From Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Karate, Kung Fu, and even occasionally Ninjitsu.

I have to say, Pride Executive Producer Nobuhiko Takada (a former champion fighter himself) really outdid himself in the upcoming Pride Grand Prix Elimination 2003 on August 10. The pay-per-view Event is the first round in a Middleweight Tournament. The card is one of the best ever conceived featuring champions and future greats.

Tournament Bouts

Kazushi Sakuraba (Saku) vs Wanderlei Silva

Quinton Jackson vs Ricardo Arona

Hidehiko Yoshida vs Kiyoshi Tamura

Alistair Overeem vs Chuck Liddell

Additional Heavyweight Bouts

Mirko (Cro-Cop) Filipovic vs Igor Vovchanchyn

Fedor Emelianenko vs Gary Goodridge

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs Ricco Rodriguez

This card will be featuring my five favorite Pride fighters, being Jackson; Filipovic; Emelianenko; Wanderlei; and Nogueira. The first three listed of my five are among the most devastating strikers in this franchise.

But would also like to note, tourney contender Chuck Liddell is one of the most devastating strikers representing the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). The Dream Bout in any Tournament rounds would be a Rampage Jackson - Iceman Liddell face off! Go Quinton!

Anyways, anyones watcha da Pride fighters? :)

[Charley]

I don't, but I have a friend who owns a lot of UFC tapes, and they are great to watch.

[Dyan Kharis]

.

[Dyan Kharis]

Excellent! I also follow UFC and K-1 Fighting.

K-1 Fighting is very orthodox martial arts championships yet very prestigious and reknowned the world over. The organization contains many more rules of course and these stipulations seriously disadvantaged many MMA fighters that enter it (i.e. Mirko "Cro-Cop"). Mainly because there are no takedowns, slams, chokes, submissions, nor prone strikes permited. The K1 Official Rules is here. (http://www.k-1gp.net/etop.htm)

UFC is great but unfortunately facing some financial and exposure woes. And this organization bears more rules than it's japanese counterpart Pride. PFC is as close to Vale Tudo as you can get. And the rumor mill has it, Vince MacMahon of WWE fame has approached the company. See MMA Weekly's 07/07/03 interview with UFC President Dana White in the site's Interview of the Week archive here. (http://www.mmaweekly.com/)

But my favorite MMA organization is their Japanese owned/run counterpart, Pride. In fact, the Pride 26 "Bad to the Bone" event just occured back on June 8. Which featured these bouts...

Fedor Emelianenko vs Kazuyuki Fujita

Mirko "Cro-Cop" Filipovic vs Heath Herring

The return of two veterans in a rematch bout ~ Mark Coleman vs Don Frye

Quinton Jackson vs Mikhail Itoukhine

Mike Bencic vs Alistair Overeem

Diaju Takase vs Anderson Silva

And a finally newcomer, making his Pride Championship debut ... Kazuhiro Hamanaka. He will be up against veteran Antonio Schembrius.

I have already seen Pride 26 and it was truly exciting. Fedor, Cro-Cop, and Quinton, as noted before, are three of my five favorite Pride fighters. But the card also featured some additional fighters I fondly appreciate, those being Muay Thai/Submissions fighter Alistair Overeem and Anderson Silva (not to be confused with Wanderlei Silva). Anderson, BTW, is reknowned for his knees ~ in particular the flying knee strike.

If you have an opportunity to catch a scheduled replay telecast of Pride 26 or the upcoming August 10th, I highly recommend either. Both offer a great introduction to Pride Fighting Championships.

[Dyan Kharis]

The PFC statement:



What is PRIDE ?

"PRIDE is extremely authentic fighting."

PRIDE is extremely authentic fighting, in other words, this is the closest one comes to street fighting. Combative sports are supposed to be about the art of self-defense, and the object is to hit and not be hit in real combat on the street. While pursuing the various techniques, many styles and schools were born. In order to compete amongst one another using these techniques, they have each developed as competitive sports.
But each school made its own rules to engage in competition, and eventually all became "amusement sports", not actual fighting. For example, boxing is fighting mainly with hands and arms as a measure of power. The idea is wonderful, but in a real situation, it is unrealistic to fight only with the hands.

What is necessary to bring fighting closer to reality? What is an authentic fighting style? The answer is here, in the PRIDE ring. PRIDE has the power of a real fight. PRIDE appeals to your innate combativeness. You may find some battles disturbing, and sometimes you'll find the techniques fascinating. PRIDE is built on tension and excitement. PRIDE is the fighting arena where real men vow to fight for their pride.

"PRIDE has everything."

The philosophy of PRIDE is acceptance of any technique of any school; In other words, everything is accepted.

The style was founded by the Brazilian Gracie family*, and in Portuguese, it is called ValeTudo.
The basic idea is to eliminate the restrictions as much as possible, so that all fighters in various fields can fight fairly. In a real situation, you cannot ask to the opponent "Don't punch me", or "Fight me without Judo rules". ValeTudo brings the fights closer to reality. You can use whatever you prefer, boxing punches, Karate kicks, wrestling tackles, pro-wrestling submissions, or judo locks.

Of course we set some restrictions to limit savage and violent actions. Biting, attacking eyes and groin, pulling hair are against public rules and considered violent actions. PRIDE set some rules in order to fight with dignity and pride. Safety is also a matter to be considered.

Contenders must train their body and improve their skills and avoid risks, thus the meaning of safety is not the same as we use in daily life. But this is a public event, and we are therefore conscious of its social impact as well.

*The Gracie school's founder, Elio Gracie and his family. In Japan's Meiji era, Mitsuyo Maeda, one of the "Kodo-kan Quartet", sailed to Brazil and taught Judo to the Gracie family. Later Elio fought in various arenas and created the Gracie school.

"PRIDE is the ultimate in world combative sports."

Because of its philosophy, any fighter can join in PRIDE. Top fighters from the worlds of Judo, wrestling, Karate, Kick boxing or Pro-Wrestling can try their own techniques and skills in competition with each other. In that sense, PRIDE is the survival of the strongest. Not the strongest in a specific genre, but the strongest of all combative sports fields.

Typically every sport has its proprietary rules, so participants cannot compete against each other. A baseball team cannot fight a football team. But combative sports constitute an exception. Contenders from different fields can conceivably fight when all the rules are eliminated. A Karate fighter can fight a Judo fighter, and other fighters can fight in tournaments to decide the strongest.

PRIDE rings have regularly conducted fights between different schools such as pro-wrestling vs. judo, wrestling vs. Karate, etc. The PRIDE ring is the integrated stage for all of these disciplines.

"The world's top fighters meet at PRIDE."

Fights are held between different martial forms under the rule of "everything is accepted". That is PRIDE. But PRIDE does not accept everybody. PRIDE accepts only the top fighters.

PRIDE put Rickson Gracie against Nobuhiko Takada on October 11, 1997. Ricson was undefeated in 400 matches, and Takada was known as the strongest pro-wrestler. Since then, Ricson's brothers Royler, Royce, and his cousin Renzo Gracie participated. Mark Kerr, UFC King; Mark Coleman, Silver medalist in wrestling; Maurice Smith, former kick boxing world champ; Branco Cikatic, former K-1 King all showed up in the PRIDE ring. Marco Ruas and Hugo Duarte came from Luta Livre, another Brazilian school; Kenneth Wayne Shamrock and Dan Severn from pro-wrestling; Igor Vovchanchyn from out of the Ukraine; Gary Goodridge and Kimo are from arm wrestling; Guy Mezger, Ebenezer Fontes Braga, Victor Belfort, Allan Goes, Wanderlei Da Silva... All are top fighters of the world who have worked their way up to the PRIDE ring.

Looking at Japanese fighters: Kazushi Sakuraba, who defeated Royler Gracie, is now a top-flight contender in PRIDE. Alexsander Otsuka, pro-wrestler, defeated Marco Ruas from Luta Livre, and after that he fought well with Renzo Gracie and Igor Vovchanchyn. Sakuraba and Alex brought in Masaaki Satake, K-1 Japanese champ, and Kazuyuki Fujita, the heir of "Inoki-ism" after he left New Japan pro-wrestling. Enson Inoue and Akira Shoji are also top fighters. Naoya Ogawa, who was a Judo world champ, switched to pro-wrestling and defeated Shinya Hashimoto many times. Now he is also a brilliant contender in PRIDE.

As you see, PRIDE is now the setting for the world's top fighters to gather under a rule of "everything is accepted". PRIDE is the privilege and goal of the greatest of fighters.

"PRIDE makes dream cards real."

PRIDE has made so many dream cards a reality. Some fighters want to fight certain contenders, and some fans want to see some earth-shattering match-ups. It is our role to realize both.

PRIDE started with a match between Nobuhiko Takada, the strongest in pro-wrestling and Ricson Gracie, the strongest in the Gracie School. The Gracies are the branches and pro-wrestlers are the nuclei of PRIDE. As the branches have broken with the legacy of Pro-wrestling, "Gracies vs. pro-wrestling" become the biggest-drawing cards. Of course other combinations of combatants afford equal interest, such as Akira Shoji, Mark Kerr, or Igor Vovchanchyn. We give these fighters the chance to realize their dreams as well.

"PRIDE GP2000" is, therefore, the culmination of all we have done. Masaaki Satake, K-1 Japanese champ fought Mark Coleman, wrestling silver medalist. In addition, some of the the hottest pairings, such as Alexsander Otsuka vs. Igor Vovchanchyn, Enson Inoue vs. Mark Kerr were undertaken. Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Royce Gracie was hotly anticipated. Sakuraba has been eager to knock the Gracies down. Who has never imagined the match between Kazushi Fujita and Mark Kerr?!
We'll continue to surprise you with startling match-ups. PRIDE is unprecedented. PRIDE is full of excitement. PRIDE is the combat event for the new century.

"PRIDE is about scrambling."

PRIDE is the duel between men under the rule of "everything is accepted". We often see the fighters come from behind, switch from offense to defense. This is the basic technique of the duel. Why? Because men cannot fight in the standing position for a long time.

To elaborate: In the standing position, one side tries to punch and kick, and one's counterpart tries to block and defend, but sometimes the other gets hit. The more punches thrown, the more difficult the defense.

What is the most effective defense technique? Clinching is the best. Clinching makes the opponent difficult to attack. You will see this often at boxing or kick boxing matches. Usually the referee breaks the clinch, but here in PRIDE there are no stopping rules, so the fighters fall, clinching, to the ground. Some wrestlers and Gracie fighters try to tackle to avoid hitting, and to get submissions and bring out their groundwork techniques. That is why you will see frequent groundwork.

What happens when the fighters hit the ground? They take new positions. It is crucial to get one's advantage in the ground position, in order to hit or set the pace of the groundwork. As you can imagine, the mount position is the most effective. The fighter in the mount position can dominate. There are almost endless submissions that can be set in the ground position. Then what does the opposing side do on the ground? He tries to avoid the attack with a guard position or half guard, so the fighter on top cannot fully complete his strategy. The fighter below watches for a chance to reverse the match. "Pass guard" is the work that the fighter on top tries to avoid — the guard from the bottom — as he tries to complete the mount position or get a submission.

As you see, under the rule of "everything is accepted", taking a dominant position helps ensure victory. Taking advantage and giving the counterpart disadvantage is the basic policy. Knowing this and observing it in practice, you'll enjoy the duel more.

"PRIDE shows the drama of men fighting."

PRIDE constantly offers dream cards. But we don't consider them a transitory phenomenon. Rather, we see all the events as stories in an ongoing series. A bout produces a winner and a loser. PRIDE spotlights the winner of course, but we also spotlight the loser's side. If the loser fights a good and moving fight, we offer him another chance for revenge, and offer his fans the chance to follow his story into the future.

In the sports world, "strength" is one of the most important factors. Results are the keys to matches. Our Fighters put emphasis on the results of course, but fans have the option of watching fights with differing objectives. When strong fighters cannot exhibit their spirit and determination, it's difficult to reach the hearts of their long-time fans. For a fan, the most moving moment is to feel the fighter's heart and determination throughout every round.

PRIDE would like to show you these human dramas beyond the results. It is not just the drama of a man vs. a man, but the epic story of a man and his life.

The Gracie family, one of the branches of PRIDE, bring to the fights not only their combative skill, but also as a members of a famed lineage, the pride, the tradition and the Gracie legacy. Nobuhiko Takada, Kazushi Sakuraba, Alexsander Otsuka, Kazuyuki Fujita fight for the long history and pride of pro-wrestling. Masaaki Satake fights for Karate, Akira Shoji for Judo, and all fighters fight for what they believe. Knowing these tips, you will enjoy PRIDE more and more.

Copyright (c) 2002 Dream Stage Entertainment Inc. All photographs, graphics, texts, and other content belongs to Dream Stage Entertainment, and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed in any form without express written permission from Dream Stage Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

[Kharis]

ttt


Tomorrow evening is the night. The card is stacked. The results of each fight can fall either way. And it's going to be hosting my two favorite MMA fighters. Bad news is brilliant Jiu-Jitsu tactician Ricardo Arona suffered an ankle injury on Aug. 4 and had to be pulled out of the Middleweight tournament. How unfortunate, because he is a topnotch fighter who really earned his place in the Grand Prix.

But numerous MMA fans are actually pleased because Ricardo if anything is often accused of being one of the most boring fighters because he takes the fight to the ground and uses a tactic the fight circles call "Lay and Pray". Basically take a bare minimum of chances or risks, and win the bout by JD or TKO. He has been replaced by one of the men training him for this bout.. Murilo Bustamante, a brilliant submissions and Jiu-Jitsu fighter with some boxing background too. Not afraid to go toe-to-toe with strikers like Liddell and may surely present great problems for the bigger Jackson.

Here is the official order for matches on the evening. (The tourney-unrelated Heavyweight bouts will be designated with an asterik.)

1. Fedor Emelianenko vs Gary Goodridge* > Note: Fedor is HW champion and this is a nontitle bout.

2. Alistair Overeem vs Chuck Liddell

3. Quinton Jackson vs Murilo Bustamante

4. Antonio (Minotauro) Noguiera vs Ricco Rodriguez*

5. Mirko (Cro-Cop) Filipovic vs Igor Vovchanchyn*

6. Hidehiko Yoshida vs Kiyoshi Tamura

7. Wanderlei Silva vs Kazushi (Saku) Sakuraba

This has been one of the greatest MMA cards concocted in years. Great showcase of talent.

Only two bouts is a fighter heavily favored in and whom those are is Fedor Emelianenko and Olympic Judo gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida. But even, arm-wrestler turned MMA Goodridge can potentially turn their bout into a Douglas/Tyson scenario which would really shock the fight world.

The other two contested HW match-ups on the card will lead up to a Fedor title match.

As far as the LHW/MW tourney is concerned, the next round is likely slated for November but no confirmed word yet. The program starts 6pm (9pm EST) Sunday August 10th. Pride Grand Prix MiddleWeight Elimination Tournament.



Go Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson and Mirko 'Cro-Cop' Filipovic!!!

[Kharis]

PRIDE Grand Prix Total Elimination 2003 Pay Per View Schedule

iNDEMAND PPV SCHEDULES
iNDEMAND 1
08/10/03 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT (Premiere with immediate replay)
08/12/03 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT

iNDEMAND 2
08/13/03 10:00pm ET/7:00pm PT
08/17/03 11:00am ET/8:00am PT
08/18/03 11:00pm ET/8:00pm PT

DIRECTV SCHEDULE
8/10 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT (Premiere with immediate replay)
| 8/11 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/12 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/13 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/14 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/18 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/20 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/22 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/28 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)
8/30 6:00am ET/9:00am PT (All Day Ticket)

DISHNETWORK SCHEDULE
8/10 9:00pm ET/6:00 pm PT (Premiere with immediate replay)
8/11 8:00pm ET/5:00 pm PT
8/11 11:00pm ET/8:00am PT
8/13 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)
8/16 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)
8/19 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)
8/24 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)
8/26 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)
8/31 5:00am ET/2:00am ADDT (All Day Ticket)

TVN SCHEDULE
8/10 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT (Premiere with immediate replay)
8/14 12:00am ET/9:00pm PT
8/25 10:00pm ET/7:00pm PT
8/31 1:00am ET/10:00pm PT

EVENT TV
8/10 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT (Premiere with immediate replay)
8/11 10:00pm ET/7:00am PT
8/12 8:00am ET/5:00am PT
8/12 8:00am ET/5:00am PT
8/12 2:30am ET/11:30am PT
8/13 5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT
8/14 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT
8/16 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT
8/17 12:30am ET/9:30pm PT
8/17 3:00am ET/12:00am PT
8/19 11:00pm ET/8:00am PT
8/20 10:30am ET/7:30am PT
8/21 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT
8/22 10:30am ET/7:30am PT
8/23 6:00pm/3:00pm PT
8/24 7:00am/4:00am PT
8/25 5:30pm ET/2:30pm PT
8/27 9:00am ET/6:00am PT
8/29 10:30pm ET/7:30pm PT
8/31 9:00am/6:00am PT