Did you consider Igor the uncrowned champ of PRIDE and all of MMA in 1999/2000?

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Igor made his PRIDE debut in 98.
In 99 Rutten won the controversial title fight vs Randleman and retired. Randleman then beat Williams to become champ at the end of 99.

Meanwhile in PRIDE, Igor was 38-2 and beat 9-1 Barreto before the NC vs 11-0 Kerr in Sep and then KOed Bueno before the end of 99.

I considered Igor the uncrowned champ of PRIDE and MMA in 99 though Randleman was UFC HW champ.

Towards the end of 2000 Randy would take the UFC title off Randleman and by then Coleman had won the PRIDE GP and Igor was no longer champ.

Big Nog would go on to beat Coleman before becoming the first official PRIDE HW champ when he beat Herring in 2001.

I don’t care what the history books say, 42-2 Igor was the first real PRIDE HW champ and Coleman took the title from him before losing it to Big Nog.

They can call Big Nog vs Herring the first official HW championship fight but Igor vs Kerr and the Coleman vs Igor and Coleman vs Big Nog fights were all real HW title fights.

Now Igor having to fight Goodridge and Saku for 25 minutes before he defended his title vs Coleman on the same night is a whole another issue.

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All I know is the Bueno KO is one of my favorite knockouts of all time, with how he landed another shot as he was on his way face down to the mat.

It was like a dude chopping down a tree and then giving it one good more whack as it was falling down.

Beautiful.

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Great KO in that fight by the champ!

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Never really thought about it at the time to be honest.

But YES.

ringing episode 9 GIF

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Since PRIDE had not even created titles at the time and UFC had only had them a very short time… I’m sure I didn’t think about it like that at the time Kerr vs Igor happened but I do think I started to think of it that way once PRIDE held the Big Nog vs Herring fight for the title.

Like we all knew Kerr and Igor was huge fight between two HW’s who had been destroying everyone and of course by the time Coleman won the GP… he was once again the main to beat. Its funny Pride just held that fight “as is” and dressed the Herring fight up as the first title fight instead of the Coleman fight. The damn Herring fight was only a month after the Coleman fight.

I wonder if anyone knows why they did it that way… just held Coleman Nog as a fight and then five weeks later decided to call the Herring fight the firs title fight instead of the Coleman fight they just did.

Big Nog was the 2000 RINGS KOK champ and Coleman was the 2000 PRIDE GP champ. There is not a more perfect setup for your first official title fight than that in 2001.

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Vitor beat Herring just one fight back from Herring’s title fight but Herring TKOed Kerr after that. Vitor went on to fight Chuck in the UFC in the first UFC fight on cable TV.

Man, Vitor was the king of not being held in a promotion back then, he was able to bounce around PRIDE, UFC, Strikeforce and Cage Rage.

I mean, everyone bounced around more then but he was able to hit three of those promotions sometimes in a single year.

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Good question.

Something I do know is that Igor was a pretty quiet and shy guy despite being so very loud in the ring.

Heath Herring was an over the top character with his whole cowboy schtick and boisterous larger than life type personality.

We all know what Japan loves.

Just saying.

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Igor is what made me watch Pride to begin with.

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I remember everyone viewing Igor vs Kerr as the world heavyweight champion fight regardless of what was going on in the UFC.

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