Pride a commercial success in America?

[Irishdazza]

This article gave me food for thought...

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...2760&zoneid=13

I gotta agree with a lot in the article...guess which part made me laugh outloud?...but surely they've planned further than one show? The apparently shallow card they are offering is going to be followed up by more realistic shows in the immediate future? Isn't it?

For instance... Will Crocop/Fedor have any meaning if they don't establish both fighters credibility for a largely oblivious American audience? What else is in the pipeline?

Only on Sunday, I had a chat with an English Light Heavyweight Amateur boxer who having turned 35 has had to bin the boxing and has taken up MMA instead....he has a knee jerk pro UFC tilt - he has never seen a Pride fight, but is convinced they are all crap cause they come from asia!?!??! Chuck is brilliant!!! He's unbeatable!!! This is the same guy who was telling me that most MMA was rubbish, a decent boxer would always get a knockout punch in early!

Pride would apppear to have a harder PR battle on their hands than one would expect.

Sorry if that's a bit of a ramble, but I preach the Pride Gospel and am getting more and more frustrated at a generally unaccepting audience!

[kuri]

I think it's a case of most MMA newbies not having been exposed to fighters in Pride. Up to now the PPV's weren't promoted very much but now that Pride is holding shows here it'll get more exposure and I'll bet that a good number of people will recognize that by and large Pride has better fighters.

I also think having it in a ring will help. No pinning guys against the cage for lay n pray. There tends to be more consistent action with fighters getting fined for stalling (there is motiviation for you).

IMO the MMAWeekly article was inaccurate in some respects. There are a number of American fighters on the card and Tyson will not be on it.

As for your Brit friend sit him down and have him watch Rampage beating the shit out of Chuck in Pride

[getgot211]

Originally Posted by kuri

I think it's a case of most MMA newbies not having been exposed to fighters in Pride. Up to now the PPV's weren't promoted very much but now that Pride is holding shows here it'll get more exposure and I'll bet that a good number of people will recognize that by and large Pride has better fighters.

idk, it will be to hard to call. the only way people will see is common opponents. PRIDE will do its thing with vapor marketing(which they tend to do a lot of) saying they're calling out so and so with nothing to really substantiate it. and they have all their old UFC guys talking about "better competition", like at the press conference. yet, Baroni, Coleman, Belfort, and soon to be Lawler all lost their way out of the UFC. and I'm sure the UFC will note as much, if they even choose to acknowledge PRIDE.

I also think having it in a ring will help. No pinning guys against the cage for lay n pray. There tends to be more consistent action with fighters getting fined for stalling (there is motiviation for you).

there wont be cards here, so they have to get people buying the main PPV's. me personally, I'm not a big fan of docking pay. plus they tend to be kinda biased with it.

[Irishdazza]

Hi Kuri...I know what you mean...I was just using the boxer story to illustrate the effect of UFC's PR. This guy was sceptical of all MMA six months ago, but now "UFC rocks and everything else is crusty pants".

Will the Pride people tap into marketing that's as effective - I reckon the Grand Pris would have been a better opener for the states...Fedor is excellent but he's not always pretty to watch and when he empties Coleman, won't Americans just say that he was washed up anyway?

Anyway, I just hope all their eggs aren't in this one basket - they need to be planning a year or more in advance, with attractive US based cards that are going to fire people's imagination.

My 2 pence.....oh, and I'm going to get that Rampage Lidell clip - thanks for the heads up!

[ko67]

I think that both have talent. But without the crossover, we will never know.

At the end of the day, I don't really care as long as I see some good fights, and lots of them.