UFC vs. Pride

[ZEB]

[quote]slimjim wrote:
ZEB wrote:
And all I’m saying is that I think he is better than Penn…CURRENTLY.

And you’re wrong![/quote]

How can my “opinion” of a fight that has not yet taken place be wrong? You claim that as a “fact.” Logic my boy…

If they fight again soon then we will see if I am wrong. At this point (CURRENTLY) I feel that Hughes would defeat Penn.

And your opinion is that Penn would win. We don’t know who is right or wrong yet do we?

[quote]I’m not sure but I think most of the Gracies at that time were pretty small guys. And if you wanted to pick the
smallest one he might go about 145lbs.

It’s all conjecture at this point.[/quote]

No actually there are two or three Gracies (maybe more) that weighed far less than Royce’s 178lbs. at the time of the first UFC. Your contention that Royce may have been picked because he was the smallest is wrong!

You see the difference between opinion and fact? We can easily look up the Gracie family and find a few of them smaller than Royce at the time of the first UFC. That means that anyone who stated that Royce was picked because he was the smallest (as you did earlier) is in fact WRONG!

I didn’t miss your point unless you stated your position unclearly. Part of your post stated that Rickson had nothing to back up his skills.

Sometimes I think you deliberately misrepresent. Either that or you, for some reason, don’t comprehend well. I never once stated that “Rickson had nothing to back up his skills.” On the contrary I gave him credit for being a highly skilled Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. Please scroll back and take a look.

If you have the approval from the a family of fighters like the Gracies that recognize you as the best out of their family, that is good enough for me.

Good enough for what? To be the best MMA fighter the world has ever seen? (shaking head). So…you are claiming that by virtue of his families backing he is the best that ever lived?

His brother, Relson, makes fun of his record too, but he concedes that he was a great fighter. I do dislike the way you trivialize his record by comparing the fighters he fought to elementary school students.

Ha ha…I told you he fought “nobodies.” I then gave an example of me fighting “kids” in order to create a record of 200-0. I never stated that he fought kids. If you don’t understand examples I won’t use them anymore.

Me vs kids

is similar to:

Rickson vs nobodies

Can you understand the comparison now?

In that many fights against men, he at least ran the risk of getting caught with a lucky shot or two, but never did. While he was doing all of this there wasn’t much of an organization for MMA as there is today, so I won’t hate him for taking on less than stellar talent.

Your argument is starting to be almost as funny as Ricksons 400-0 record! LOL

You admit that his own brother makes fun of his record. You admit that probably the only way he was ever going to lose to these slugs was with a lucky punch. Yet, for some reason you cling to the “Rickson was the greatest fighter who ever lived” MYTH.

You need an idol or what?

If so there are others who actually have fought the leading contenders of their day and won. You won’t find anyone who is 400-0 because they don’t exist in real life…unless someone with talent was fighting “NOBODIES.”

Getting the picture yet? No probably not…

Would you like a list of truly great MMA fighters?

I don’t want to be insulting, but you are sounding like a young boy who won’t stop believing in Santa. I don’t mean that as an insult. You are not a young boy (see I explained my example).

Hey, I will end this on a positive note (not that that will quell your taste for Internet combat lol).

I think Rickson Gracie is one of the best Jiu-Jitsu stylists who ever lived! Oh wait…I said that before and you didn’t seem to care…

Oh well

[BJBliffert]

[quote]samsmarts wrote:
^KOTC is very good if you cant afford UFC ppvs check out KOTC they are very entertaining. And i believe Vito Belfort will be fighting on their next event.[/quote]

You can also buy their DVDs in 10 disc sets for about 20 buck. They’re great, they cut out all bullshit between matches and you get over 100 hours of fights. The second set I bought had lots og fighters from The Ultimate Fighter seasons 1&2. Good Stuff.

[slimjim]

Zeb, you talk about misrepresentation and then say that I’m claiming Rickson was the best fighter of all time. Where did I say that? You are the one with selective reading skills.

[slimjim]

[quote]ZEB wrote:

Please don’t beat the “Rickson was incredible drum” because there really is nothiing to back that up.

[/quote]

Here it is Zeb, this is what I was referring to. You state there is nothing to back up the fact that he was incredible. If you’re recognized as the best out the Gracie family, that’s pretty damn incredible. If he really did have 400 fights and go undefeated, even against chumps, pretty incredible.

[ZEB]

[quote]slimjim wrote:
ZEB wrote:

Please don’t beat the “Rickson was incredible drum” because there really is nothiing to back that up.

Here it is Zeb, this is what I was referring to. You state there is nothing to back up the fact that he was incredible. If you’re recognized as the best out the Gracie family, that’s pretty damn incredible. If he really did have 400 fights and go undefeated, even against chumps, pretty incredible. [/quote]

No actually it’s not “incredible” to beat 400 chumps (if that number is even correct). As I told you before if I can hand pick the right people I can also go undefeated, and so can you. Are you and I “incredible?” Um…I don’t think so.

[slimjim]

Speak for yourself Zeb, the ladies all tell me I’m incredible.

[ZEB]

[quote]slimjim wrote:
Speak for yourself Zeb, the ladies all tell me I’m incredible.[/quote]

LOL…okay.

[FFJeff]

Hughes is one of my favorite fighters. I really admire his work ethic as well as his fighting ability. I love seeing him pick up his opponents and throw them down like rag dolls.

His two fights agains Frank Trigg were awesome. During the second fight, Hughes got nailed in the junk when the ref wasn’t looking, almost got knocked out, and then recovered enough to put Trigg in another rear naked choke to win. Great fighter.

I also really like Randy Coutore. You have to appreciate a guy that is 42 and kicking the asses of guys my age (early 20’s).

As far as the Pride vs. UFC thing, I personally like the cage in UFC because it seems to allow more aggression in the ground game- take downs, etc. Pride does seem like it gets better fighters, but UFC is on Spike all the time now also.

Does it seem to anyone else that Pride fighters have more class and respect for each other? It might be that I haven’t watched much Pride, but you don’t see a lot of shit talking between the Pride fighters. Maybe I’m wrong.

Jeff

[Massif]

[quote]MAKO068 wrote:

There is no way you can match up Rickson to any fighter today. Most fighters today are juiced up and just ungodly huge. If not for the popularity BJJ would not be as popular as it is today and Rorion founded the UFC. Rickson put Pride on the map.

Rickson is a 7th Degree Black Belt Open Class Champion of the Gracie Family, whose technique is considered to be the finest expression of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the world. His innate talent and early mastery of the sport have resulted in an impeccable undefeated record in more than 400 fights, including Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, free-style wrestling, Sambo, open weight free-style competitions, and no holds barred challenge matches.

Rickson is a two time Brazilian Champion in free-style wrestling, a Gold Medal Winner of Sambo, and for almost two decades he has been the middle-heavyweight and no weight division World Jiu-Jitsu Champion. Most recently, he conquered Japan’s elite fighting in a tournament, the Japan Open Vale Tudo, winning both in 1994 and 1995. At this time, Rickson was acknowledged by the Japanese for possessing the Samurai Spirit.

In the 1997 Pride 1 Vale Tudo match in Japan’s Tokyo Dome (before 47,860 spectators), he defeated Japan’s top ranked fighter, Nobuhiko Takada, in 4:47 of the first round. A year later, to the day, in the 1998 Pride 4 Vale Tudo match, Rickson defended his title. In the most awaited rematch in martial arts history, drawing an overwhelming 50,000 spectators to Japan’s Tokyo Dome, Rickson defeated Takata once again.

At Colosseum 2000, held at the Tokyo Dome, broadcast to 30 million TV Tokyo viewers (the highest viewed television program for its time slot), Rickson fought Japan’s number one fighter, Masakatsu Funaki. He defeated his opponent with a rear naked choke in 11:46 of the first round.

[/quote]

Can anyone say “hero worship”?

[ytbones]

The thing I like about Pride is how it seems like all their fighters are some of the best representatives of their style. CroCop is one of the top kickboxers in the world. Fedor is a World Sambo Champion. Nogueira is aworld champ in BJJ. Coleman and Randleman are both NCAA freestyle wrestling champions. Yoshida is an Olympic gold medalist in Judo.

With the UFC I get the feeling that their fighters are just jack of all trades masters of none (with the exception of Couture is a NCAA greco-roman wrestling national champion)

Dont get me wrong the UFC has some top notch MMA fighters but I got hooked on MMA when it was style vs. style. In the UFC it seems like those guys all fight the same style.

[Sentoguy]

Hi guys,

First let me say that I definetely prefer Pride in terms of the actual fighting. The athletes are much more skilled and the crowd doesn’t start booing when they don’t understand what is going on.

On the other hand I like the cage set up in the UFC more, as it is a much more realistic environment (could be a fence in real life).

Now, as far as this whole Rickson debate…first let me say that I do respect that he is a highly skilled ju-jutsu practitioner. But, this myth about him being the “best” or “incredible” is just that, a myth.

I personally train with someone who has beaten Rickson, in a grappling match. And this was years ago, while Rickson was in his prime (and my instructor was still a young man).

Now once again, that’s not to say he isn’t good, just that there are guys who are better than him out there.

One thing I will say about the Gracie family, they are outstanding self promoters. They have marketed themselves better than any other group of martial artists in the past couple decades. That is the reason everyone thinks they are the cat’s ass when it comes to ju-jutsu.

One more thing that I would like to mention, is that there are martial artists out there who have been doing ground fighting long before the UFC was invented, so to suggest that the Gracies are soley responsible for the adoption of ground fighting into martial artists’ training curriculums is kind of absurd.

Good training,

Sentoguy

[CHARLES1313]

The problem with UFC is they have around 8 or 9 really good fighters and then the talent drops. Pride has around 20 fighters that are really good. Pride keeps the action going, if you stall you can lose 10% of your purse. UFC promotes itself(and Dana White) while Pride promotes the fighters.To answer your question, Pride as a whole is more exciting and features the greatest fighters all over the world.

[slimjim]

[quote]CHARLES1313 wrote:
The problem with UFC is they have around 8 or 9 really good fighters and then the talent drops. Pride has around 20 fighters that are really good. Pride keeps the action going, if you stall you can lose 10% of your purse. UFC promotes itself(and Dana White) while Pride promotes the fighters.To answer your question, Pride as a whole is more exciting and features the greatest fighters all over the world. [/quote]

I tend to agree that the better heavyweights and a couple of the best lightheavies are in Pride, but some of the undercard pride matches are complete crap, the UFC has some bad undercards every once in awhile, but I feel they’ve done a better job of ensuring decent matches than Pride does. Unless it’s part of the Pride tourney or a big name title fight, I’m going with UFC pay per views.

[Scrappy]

The UFC has a great 170 division now. I 'm so psyched for it. Pride’s heavies and light heavies are my favorites though, and they set up a good light weight tourney too. Genkei Sudo and Gomi are tough dudes. I’d love to see Arlovski, Couture and Lidell pit themselves against the Pride crew.

I’m a huge Rickson fan but I also love today’s guys like Couture, Silva, Penn, shogun and St.Pierre.
I think some, (read Rorion) of the gracies really rubbed some folks the wrong way. It’s a huge family and I know a few of them real well and some others less well and they’ve almost all been super nice and very cool. never cocky or taking themselves to serious. A lot of people hate them, but they did get things rolling here in the USA.

Many martial artists did neglect grappling before their popularity. Not to mention they are damn good at it. The best athletes in MMA still look to fight a Gracie cause it’s a big draw and a big challenge. BJ beat Rodrigo and Renzo, but not the way he beat Matt Hughes, that, to me, was impressive. Both of those Gracies took it the distance with BJ. Can’t say that about Hughes, as talented as he is.

Look at how good Matt Hughes is now as he is applying more and more BJJ in his game. When the super athletic start to get super technical in bjj/boxing/wrestlng/thai…look out…

[Zap_Branigan]

They have been showing PRIDE matches on our local Comcast Sports Channel.

I am sure it is not their best guys, but some of these dudes are pathetic. They look way out of shape and the fights are not exciting.

I would like to see some of their top level guys fight, but the scrubs I have seen suck.

The UFC shows are better produced and show better fights. Of course this does not mean the best UFC guys are better than the best PRIDE guys.