It is clear now that Pride never intended to work with the UFC, but to strictly compete with them. They used the possibility of a Chuck/Silva fight.
They wanted to face Silva in front of Liddell, right in the middle of the octagon, so that the UFC fans who may not know Silva, would recognize him as somebody from another organization worthy enough to fight Liddell for the title right away. Now Silva's name and face are on everyone's mind.
The press conference helped to seal the deal that Pride is superior to UFC. They mentioned that Tim Sylvia didn't have the balls to step up to Fedor. They asked all the fighters with UFC/Pride experience to explain the differences. All of them prefer Pride, of course.
Pride toyed with the UFC, then used their cunning business tactics to hit the UFC so fast, Dana White never saw this plan coming.
Macdawg, my point is that the purpose of the fighters being asked that question was to point out that Pride is superior to, and has no intention of working with the UFC....not to guess which fighters will promote which promotion.
KOP, you evidently don't really understand the comparison between Yakuza and Mafia.
I think Pride has been planning this move for some time now. They waited for UFC to introduce the sport to a wide mainstream audience. Pride is doing ok in Japan, so why put in the work to win over a new American Market? Let UFC do all the hard work, then move in on them when the market is ripe.
If they played them like fiddle the match(es) would have happened. They played them a little and UFC wised up. Of course we the fans and the fighters involved were the losers. But hey, have fun riding jock romos.
"Nobody knows who Silva is today. Even after the Liddell thing"
KOP, Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone, TUF noobs included, is talking about Silva. The search results for him have increased like 10x since the face off.
Nobody has ever been able to compete with UFC in America. Nobody really has the budget or the roster to touch the UFC. Even with the WFA's card full of superfights, they didn't touch the UFC.
Pride will be different. It is known by MMA fans as the premier MMA org. in the world. They have a huge budget, the best and consistant MMA roster in the world, they have Fox Sports, and now they have Tyson.
A couple years ago, you'd be correct with your thinking. Everybody is now talking about UFC now because it's mainstream, but Pride will attempt to turn the people's perception of the sport from "UFC" to "MMA", or perhaps even "Pride Fighting".
Sorry guys but Pride isn't taking over the world anytime soon. The
press conference claims are just rhetoric... for example, just ask the
WFA what all trash talking UFC fighters got them (jack shit). The Silva
promotion at UFC 61 may have been sneaky but it will only earn Pride a
few hundred/ maybe a thousand extra PPV buys. Adding Tyson may
help buys but he's no longer that big of a deal the casual sports fan.
Basically Pride is not the cure for cancer and they'll have an incredible
battle in overtaking UFC here in the States, especially if they continue
to burn bridges.
Why you would want that for any reason is completely beyond me. Only a fanboy of one organization or the other (like you're claiming the chief is) would make an idiotic statement like that.
"Nobody knows who Silva is today. Even after the Liddell thing. "
What is this statement based on?
Wanderlei Silva is the most searched name on Yahoo right after that Silva X Liddell staredown in the octagon.
Are you lying or ignorant? After people saw Silva in the UFC and said who the fuck is that he briefly got a lot of searches. That was one day and one day only.
Go ask the man on the street who Wanderlei Silva is and then ask them who Tito Ortiz is. One is famous here and one one is not. Go do your survey and come back and tell us which one is which.
I wish Silva and Pride all the success in the world, the difference is I'm not going to lie about it.