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The Possibility Of PRIDE FC Coming Back?

From Sun Media's Scrapyard:

"You never know, anything is possible," said White when asked if he’d consider hosting an event or two in a ring under the Pride brand.
"For its time slot on Friday night, the first episode pulled a good rating so we’re excited about that. We’re hoping that series will continue to do well."
The UFC purchased Pride — considered by some the only real competitor to the UFC — in 2007 but was met with a hostile business climate in Japan when it tried to run the promotion. The promotion closed its offices in Japan in late 2007 and its stable of fighters were either signed to the UFC or dismissed outright.
"I don’t want to say the Pride name is dead. It’s still a strong powerful brand. But the reality is that us running Pride in Japan, that completely fell apart."

That's UFC President Dana White speaking about a possible revival of PRIDE FC.  The Japanese promotion that the UFC took over in 2007, only later to disband it and take the majority of the best fighters over the the UFC brand.  I'm not buying it.  Zuffa has the WEC, which they don't promote well at all, yet they would revive something like PRIDE?  That don't even have enough fighters under contract to run the UFC, WEC, and PRIDE with all of them being separate promotions. 

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It simply wouldn’t be PRIDE… it’d be like the WWE edition of ECW.

"I don’t care, hit him with your groin!"

by 3PA on Jan 24, 2010 1:31 PM EST reply actions  

you thin fedor or his mangers are trying to make a deal that states fedor would fight lesnar

but it has to be in a ring. they saw how it was a problem for their boy when brett rogers had him against the cage. i can’t believe d.w. would go for this but maybe he is desperate to see that fight.

i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"

by wolfmanshowlforever on Jan 24, 2010 1:32 PM EST reply actions  

nah

he wouldn’t go that far for one fight…

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by Kelvin Hunt on Jan 24, 2010 1:33 PM EST up reply actions  

i agree, i just tossed it out there.

if he is considering it you know he must have somebody in mind. maybe anderson silva. he did lose his matches in pride and in the ring. maybe he wants to see him lose for some reason. maybe even a test for fedor. maybe they put frank mir against him and see how he does. i’m sure mir would be game. my brain is a churning.

i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"

by wolfmanshowlforever on Jan 24, 2010 1:37 PM EST up reply actions  

I don’t want to say the Pride name is dead. It’s still a strong powerful brand….

What he really means to say is “We’ll sell Pride merchendise and play back footage, but we’ll never have an event in a ring or with Screaming Lady.”

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by -Neil- on Jan 24, 2010 2:14 PM EST reply actions  

basically

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by Kelvin Hunt on Jan 24, 2010 2:18 PM EST up reply actions  

If I’m not mistaken the reason running Pride in Japan fell apart was because the contracts for the fighters in Pride weren’t transferable after Zuffa bought out Pride. Correct? I’m a little hazy on the details, but I remember something along those lines.

As for Pride coming back right, and the IFL will be resurrected to.

by scrambledeggs on Jan 24, 2010 2:25 PM EST reply actions  

i'm sure chris horodezki would like that after that foot in the face blow. lol.

i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"

by wolfmanshowlforever on Jan 24, 2010 3:14 PM EST up reply actions  

that's one of the reasons

There were also talks of the Japanese mafia hindering stuff…among other things.

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by Kelvin Hunt on Jan 24, 2010 4:06 PM EST up reply actions  

Yeah, from what I heard the lack of an ability to secure a TV deal that makes sense is what really made it difficult to justify running shows in Japan under that banner.

by Rich Wyatt on Jan 24, 2010 5:22 PM EST up reply actions  

They couldn’t run in Japan because they’d need to re-work TV deals, get new fighter contracts, and essentialy start over. Japan doesn’t dig non-Japanese companies coming over and starting up shop, so Zuffa would have to start a Japanese presence, paying taxes and the whole nine. Essentially they’d have to co-promote with another company in Japan to get anything done, and we all know how well that works out.

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by -Neil- on Jan 24, 2010 7:30 PM EST up reply actions  

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