UFC buys Pride- official now

[Juiced89lx]

They had their press conference at 5 am eastern time.

from Pridefc.com

On Tuesday, March 27th, at the Roppongi Hills Arena in Tokyo, PRIDE Executive Director Nobuhiko Takada and UFC President Dana White appeared together to announce that the two largest MMA organizations in the world, America's UFC and Japan's PRIDE FC, will finally come to blows.

Since the dawn of the sport, PRIDE FC and the UFC have continued to be the driving forces behind mixed martial arts. Under the new leadership of PRIDE owner Lorenzo Fertitta, the MMA world is one step closer to determining who truly is the world's toughest man. This momentous event will similarly resemble baseball's World Series, soccer's World Cup, and football's Super Bowl.

In addition, DSE President and CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara announced that his resignation from PRIDE FC will take place immediately after PRIDE.34, scheduled to take place April 8th at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan. Lorenzo Fertitta will assume Mr. Sakakibara's responsibilities as PRIDE's new owner.

Details of the press conference will be posted here shortly, so stay tuned for updates!

Here is a link to a play by play of the press conference.
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=7086

[Denny]

I'm glad to see it all come under one. Now there won't be any excuses as to who is the best.

[JKD]

I'm glad to see it all come under one. Now there won't be any excuses as to who is the best.


AMEN!

[Matt93Cobra]

Hopefully the Ferttitas won't liquidate DSE's assets and will run them as a separate entity.

[jw33]

now fedor can destroy all.

[SEB]

This is great news. Fighting is about to go Mainstream now. I imagine in 10yrs it will be as big as Basketball & Football & Baseball.

[T-TOPPS5.0]

So did I read it correctly, UFC will be in charge?

[Nate]

So did I read it correctly, UFC will be in charge?
No one of the brothers who owns UFC will be in charge...but it will make the fights people want to see possible. Hopefully they run it as a separate Entity.

[Juiced89lx]

as far as I know, it will be ran as a separate company.
This just happened so I expect more info to become public soon.

I will post up some video of the press conference when I get back home.

[Juiced89lx]

Even ESPN is covering it
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2814235



http://www.cpalmquist.com/files/loretta/DANA.jpg

http://www.cpalmquist.com/files/loretta/DANA2.jpg

http://www.cpalmquist.com/files/loretta/DANA3.jpg

[Juiced89lx]

credit wrestlingobserver.com
News is official: Fertitta purchases Pride



by Dave Meltzer

Dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Pride president Nobuyuki Sakakibara announced at a press conference this evening (very early morning U.S. time) at the Tokyo Roppongi Hills that Dream Stage Entertainment has sold the assets of the Pride Fighting Championships to Lorenzo Fertitta-led ownership group of the UFC.

The new company, called Pride Fighting Championships Worldwide, would operate as a separate company from UFC. Sakakibara publicly announced he was leaving the organization. No new organization president was announced nor were much in the way of details given about the future.

Dana White, Fertitta and Sakakibara followed hours later with a conference call from Japan for the U.S. media to answer questions on the ownership change.

The battle plan will be to run separate shows and maintain separate staffs. The attempt will be to make the promotions competitive rivals, even though they would no longer be business rivals. No specifics were given, but they only seemed to indicate minimal mixing of talent. There would be a Pride roster of fighters and a UFC roster. There would be matches of champions in each promotion, although when and how often had not been determined. The indication was the mixing of talent would be limited to occasional champion vs. champion matches, perhaps once per year in each weight class, where neither specific title would be at stake.

Pride would continue holding matches in the ring and be, as Fertitta called it, a "Japanese-centric" organization while UFC would be an "American-centric" organization. The only significant change talked about would be worldwide unified rules would be put in place, which would be the same rules UFC fights under, with the elimination of knees to the head on a downed fighter, stomps and soccer kicks in Pride, but adding elbows. White said Pride would keep its judging criteria for fights in Japan, but obviously, when running in the U.S., would use the commission-dictated ten-point-must system. Pride will also have weight classes change for worldwide consistency, and will crown champions at 155, 170, 185, 205 and heavyweight. Currently Pride has champions at 161 (Takanori Gomi), 183 (Dan Henderson), 205 (Henderson) and heavyweight (Fedor Emelianenko).

No new television deal, which Pride desperately needs in both Japan and the U.S. to be viable long-term, were announced. White did mention hoping to get back on the Fuji Network. Pride will run shows in the U.S., although no date for a next show was announced. UFC is looking at running shows in Japan.

Fertitta and White indicated Pride heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko is under contract to the new organization.

Dream Stage Entertainment's final event will be on 4/8 from the Saitama Super Arena. The new organization plans on keeping the current schedule commitment of Pride events.

[tex]

One of the things I read had Dana White comparing it to the AFL/NFL merger, two seperate groups with the possibility of a "superbowl" type event.

[T-TOPPS5.0]

credit wrestlingobserver.com
News is official: Fertitta purchases Pride



by Dave Meltzer

Dave@wrestlingobserver.com
Stage Entertainment has sold the assets of the Pride Fighting Championships to Lorenzo Fertitta-led ownership group of the UFC.
This is why I asked if UFC has ownership. Oh well, I guess it makes for great matchups.

[4.6 Love]

I wonder when fighters from pride and ufc face each other, which rules will apply? The ufc octagon rules or prides ring rules? It will be awsome for sure...

[Nate]

I wonder when fighters from pride and ufc face each other, which rules will apply? The ufc octagon rules or prides ring rules? It will be awsome for sure...
Probably depends on if the match happens in Japan or in the US...and if it's in the ring or the octagon lol.

[Juiced89lx]

first ufc vs pride match up is at the next show.
Kazayuki Fujita vs Jeff Monson


as far as the rules. read the link from the wrestling observer. He is about the most reliable news source out there.

From reading that article, it looks like they will eventually have a set of unified rules. Unfortunately it looks like it will be the rules set by NSAC. :(

If you ever get to see ICON sport in Hawaii, they have the best set of rules there. They combine Pride and UFC rules. Elbows and Kicks to downed opponent... :eek:

[Eric357]

Everything falls under UFC rules now.


http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3676&zoneid=2


White previously said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Pride will be adopting the UFC's rules and weight classes. "As far as I'm concerned, if an organization doesn't follow these rules, it's not MMA," White said. White also said that he would have "the option to use Pride fighters in UFC shows" if he chooses

[Juiced89lx]

<div><object width="425" height="335"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/6glArjv7kyVlzaZXq"></param><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/6glArjv7kyVlzaZXq" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="335" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1k6q0_pride-press-conference-ufc-purchase">Pride Press Conference (UFC Purchase)</a></b><br /><i>Uploaded by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/mma-tv">mma-tv</a></i></div>

[97blkpny]

Awesome! Battle of the best worldwide!

[StangTamer]

Any idea if the Pride side will go with the Octagon instead of the boxing ring? I hope so. I can't stand MMA in a boxing ring.

[Juiced89lx]

I hope they keep the ring. its much easier to see them in a ring that in the cage.

[Matt93Cobra]

Any idea if the Pride side will go with the Octagon instead of the boxing ring? I hope so. I can't stand MMA in a boxing ring.

I don't expect them to change the ring in Pride. Maybe they will change the rules to a more unified format (hopefully not) but I also hope the ring stays. Much better than the cage.

[StangTamer]

Really!! I don't like the ring because they have to stop the fight and move them to the center. I like the cage because it is bigger and gives them alittle more room to fight. I guess if you go to a fight it would be easier to see in the ring, but on PPV you can see both fine. I'm probably just partial to the UFC since I have watched more of them than Pride. The reasons I have always liked the UFC better is the cage, announcers( I prefer English over Japanese, that lady announcer pisses me of just hearing her. lol), and alot of fighters in Pride are Japanese "tomato cans".

[8mpg]

now fedor can destroy all..