UFC Purchases Pride

Charlie

Big Big MMA news;

Source: MMAWeekly

It's been rumored for months but now the deal is completed. Several major Japanese newspapers (including "SportsHochi") are confirming today that Frank Fertitta of the Zuffa company (which owns UFC) has purchased PRIDE Fighting Championship.

Fertitta will disband Dream Stage Entertainment (the former parent company of PRIDE) and form a new entity that will be seperate from UFC and its parent company, Zuffa, LLC. Pride 34 on April 8th will be the final PRIDE show under the DSE company.

PRIDE will continue to run shows in both Japan and the United States.

Although PRIDE will be run seperately from UFC, there are plans to run an annual supershow event on Pay-Per-View featuring fighters and dream matches from both companies (!!).

Recently there were rumors that the McMahons were interested in entering the world of mixed martial arts and were considered potential buyers for PRIDE. Those plans have clearly fallen through.

There is a press conference scheduled for tomorrow at the Roppongi Hills Arena in Tokyo to announce further details on this huge acquisiion.

The annual Supershow is what gets me salivating, 'MMAnia.

The Sparrow

lol id already copied and pasted that story and was about a second away from posting it! Damn it you beat me!

Seems to have been pretty much a lock for last couple of weeks, but nice to finally get confirmation... I guess we have to wait for tomorrow's press conference to get the full details...

Although I can`t help thinking back to WWE's purchase of WCW and disaster that was for pro wrestling... I hope this goes better!

Charlie

woooo232 wrote:

Although I can`t help thinking back to WWE's purchase of WCW and disaster that was for pro wrestling... I hope this goes better!

Apples and Oranges really. WCW as a product was very stale when the takeover happened. Pride as an MMA organization is still very popular and MMA in general is breaking new ground every month. As long as they(Dana & the UFC) act sensibly, this move should be a success.

The Sparrow

charlie mchugh wrote:

Apples and Oranges really. WCW as a product was very stale when the takeover happened. Pride as an MMA organization is still very popular and MMA in general is breaking new ground every month. As long as they(Dana & the UFC) act sensibly, this move should be a success.

no matter what the industry, competition is good and monopolies are bad. its a cardinal rule of economics. but in the short term it should be good news.

Fozzy

How are they going to start making Pride profitable is what I'd like to know. Maybe they'll be able to get a new tv deal in Japan because they have new owners now

I'm glad to hear they're being kept separate, unless they decide to give Pride shows a massive makeover. The format of Pride shows help make them much more exciting than UFC shows in my opinion. Number one priority for the Fertitta lads is to keep the female announcer!

And I suppose this means the end of HUSTLE, DSE's wrestling promotion

Vince135792003

woooo232 wrote:

no matter what the industry, competition is good and monopolies are bad. its a cardinal rule of economics. but in the short term it should be good news.

Pride haven't been competition in North America ever really. As great as their shows were, they never capaitalised on the US.

Theres still EXC, the IFL and Bodog. None are on the level of the UFC but they exist.

Dana White said nothing was signed as of yesterday. I think we need to wait for the conference on Tuesday (think its Tuesday). Until its signed and sealed, you just never know but it looks very likely although I don't think it'll be a 100% UFC acquisition. It might be slightly more complicated.

Thats exactly it Fozzy. With new owners, they should be able to get a new tv deal.

A little bit more from Mike Sawyer of www.f4wonline.com :

Things are getting interesting with the UFC/Pride soap opera. One thing is for sure and that is the UFC will have some ownership in the company. They will announce a new "figurehead", who is going to be from Tokai TV, which is where Sakakibara came from. He will be used as a "front man" for this whole thing. This way Saki can still have power, be out of the equation and get back on Fuji TV. It will be presented in Japan like a "merger", because if it comes out that a U.S company owns Pride, it would die in Japan. I'm expecting this announcement shortly...

Fozzy

Something that I haven't read about yet is how certain fighters' contracts will be handled. I'm assuming all the contracts are part of the acquisition, but some of the fighters also have contracts with other American MMA promotions, like Nick Diaz who has signed for EliteXC, Gilbert Melendez holds a belt in Strikeforce I think, Dan Henderson is involved with IFL and Fedor is fighting for Bodog in April. Is there any indication that they will be prevented from working for those promotions, as they'd be providing competition for the UFC? I hope not

Dragan

As far as i am aware, the UFC has nothing to do with the purchase of Pride, and neither does Zuffa ( UFC's parent company owned by the Fertitta's ). I believe they set up a new company which will be completely seperate ( this just makes sense in case one ever bombs ).

Vince135792003

Its confirmed:

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=7087

Heres a little from it:

Lorenzo Fertitta, a Station Casinos magnate alongside his older brother Frank, confirmed the purchase of the PRIDE Fighting Championships from Dream Stage Entertainment Tuesday in Tokyo.

Joined by UFC president Dana White and the company's matchmaker Joe Silva at the Roppongi Hills Arena, Fertitta discussed the creation of a mixed martial arts commission for which he would act as president.

"This is really going to change the face of MMA," Fertitta said. "Literally creating a sport that could be as big around the world as soccer. I liken it somewhat to when the NFC and AFC came together to create the NFL."

"We will be able to literally put on the fights that everyone wants to see," the former Nevada State Athletic Commission member said. "It will allow us to put on some of the biggest fights ever."

Vince135792003

From the observer:

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.

An estimated 2,500 fans attended the outdoor press conference, with Sakakibara on the verge of tears when talking about his involvement ending with the organization. Both he and Nobuhiko Takada, as expected, tried to give the impression it was a merger ("a new relationship as one joint team") as opposed to a buyout.

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. Although White or Fertitta would bring up any names of specific dream fights to the U.S. press, in the Japanese meeting he brought up Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Shogun Rua, Dan Henderson vs. Anderson Silva, Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovsky and Georges St. Pierre vs. Takanori Gomi as potential matches.

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. They announced a Pride vs. UFC match with Jeff Monson vs. Kazuyuki Fujita today, although that bout had been expected even before the deal was finalized and Monson had gotten out of his UFC contract. Also announced was a Pride pro wrestler type battle with Minowa Man (the new ring name for Ikuhisa Minowa) vs. Don Frye (returning to Pride with the expiration of his K-1 contract). The new organization plans on keeping the current schedule commitment of Pride events.

Fozzy

They're smart to keep them as separate as they've indicated. If they were to mix the rosters around right now and have all their dream fights within a year, then you'd never really be able to have another dream match. This way each promotion will be able to continue to build their own stars, and it will be a big deal whenever a Pride guy fights a UFC guy

I'm not sure about the rule change. I preferred the way Pride held their fights, especially the first round being 10 minutes. And like Joe Rogan said on the last UFC ppv, if you can kick a guy standing then why can't you kick him on the ground?

I'd wonder if all the Japanese fighters are happy with the takeover, or will some be looking to fight somewhere else? I suppose the smart money's on them staying

And with the new weight classes, the heavyweight, light-heavyweight and middleweight champs wouldn't have to change, but would Gomi step up or down a weight? Seems a bit unfair to make any of them enter tournaments or whatever

Vince135792003

5 minute clip of press conference and Dana Whites speech.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/dana%2Bwhite/video/x1k946_pride-presskonferens-dana-white