Pride 33- The Second Coming

I am a bit surprised this has not yet been made, but I guess it kind of proves just how bad Pride is marketing it. Worst job of marketing I have seen in a long time, I will not be surprised if this is their last U.S event until someone buys them out.

Anyways the fight card is as follows-

Wanderlei Silva vs Dan Henderson
Takanori Gomi vs Nick Diaz
Mauricio Shogun vs Alistair Overeem
Sergei Kharitonov vs Mike Russow
Hayato Sakurai vs Mac Danzig
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs Sokoudjou
Travis Wiuff vs James Lee
Kazuo Misaki vs Frank Trigg
Joachim Hansen vs Jason Ireland


My picks-

Wanderlei via KO round 2
Gomi via KO round 3
Overeem via KO round 2
Kharitonov via KO round 2
Sakurai via decision
Little Nog via TKO or KO round 1
Wiuff via decision
Trigg via TKO in round 3
Hellboy via TKO in round 2

I heard the PPV price will be at $25.00 but I may be wrong..If it is that low then I will buy it, if not then it is YouTube for me.

 

I tried to do a thread about it a little while back but had a power cut halfway through and couldn't be bothered to redo it. It's not that bad a card, but Pride's US department simply has to go, the marketing's just been awful
Barnett will be doing some commentating on this event, apparently. That should be good to hear; Barnett's an articulate guy that knows the sport inside-out so hopefully he'll be able to talk down whatever moron they've got sitting next to him and Trigg this time. Trigg's going to fight and then go back to commentating the event, which is the first time I've ever heard of anyone doing that
I wouldn't be shocked to hear that this is the last event Pride put on in Nevada for a while - they've had two events there and both times the NSAC has messed with the slated card. Denying Yvel a license is fair enough (though it's not without precedent that they've allowed fighters who have smacked refs back in the ring) but some of their reasons for canning fights were pretty damned spurious

Wanderlei Silva vs Dan Henderson: Silva by decision. Probably a beating like the last fight but without the stompage

Takanori Gomi vs Nick Diaz: Gomi by KO. I'd love to see Diaz do his "drop my hands and talk crap" routine, only to eat a straight left. Him cutting down to 160 will be interesting. What's also interesting is that the US rules are the reason this fight is non-title: Pride's lightweight class is 160lbs limit, the US rules state lightweight must be a 155lb limit, so the fight's considered a "catch-weight" match. Were I in the position to give people orders, I'd have told Gomi and Diaz they were dropping another five pounds and let Gomi defend that bloody belt for once, but what do I know?

Mauricio Shogun vs Alistair Overeem: Another bout where the US rules will have a noticable influence. Overeem's known for coming out strong and gassing chronically after the first couple of minutes and Shogun's a big lover of the banned techniques (stomps and soccer kicks), so on the face of it, Overeem's got a better shot than he did in Japan. That said, Shogun's going to win by brutality

Sergei Kharitonov vs Mike Russow: So hang on a second, here. Wes Sims wasn't allowed to face Fujita for "competitive reasons," he wasn't allowed to replace Yvel against Kharitonov, again for "competitive reasons," but this guy with four fights to his name, one of which was a N/C and all against unranked opponents going against Kharitonov is considered "competitive?" Whatever the NSAC are on, I want some. Sergei by murder

Hayato Sakurai vs Mac Danzig: Sakurai in what will potentially be the fight of the night

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs Sokoudjou: Noguiera by whatever he wants. He'll then go back to wondering where the hell his title shot is

Travis Wiuff vs James Lee: Wiuff by sub. This was originally slated to be against Nakamura, but he suffered an injury so Lee was brought in as a last-minute replacement

Kazuo Misaki vs Frank Trigg: It's good to see Trigg fighting top guys in his new weight class, but Misaki will win this one, probably by decision

Joachim Hansen vs Jason Ireland: Hansen by knees

 

I totally agree with you as far as Pride's U.S department doing a horrible job...Their marketing is terrible for sure, hard to believe they can be this bad without trying to.

As to the NSAC- Yea, they need an MMA "board" because they make some stupid decisions. Need some MMA judges as well but...

Anyone know if the PPV is really only $25.00?

 

[EXPAND="Spoilers"]So I couldn't afford the PPV at $40 but I wish I could have because many are calling it one of the best event in years.

I can say this..I was shocked and excited from the play by play which has never happened before.

Night of upsets, many, many of them.



Wanderlei Silva vs Dan Henderson- Dan Henderson Wins via KO in round 3 after winning round 1 and 2!!! He is now both MW and LHW champion.

Takanori Gomi vs Nick Diaz- Diaz wins via gogoplata(second time we have seen this win a fight!) in round 2 after dominating Gomi. He outstrike him, made Gomi gas, Diaz did take a lot of punishment including a huge cut but he was clearly winning up until the submission victory.

Mauricio Shogun vs Alistair Overeem- The big upset that I called never happened...Shogun lands a huge right hand from Overeem's guard that knocks him out. American version of his stomps.

Sergei Kharitonov vs Mike Russow- After the previous fights, this was a nerve wracking event. Russow was winning the fight but Sergei managed a submission(armbar) late in the first round that ended it.

Hayato Sakurai vs Mac Danzig- Sakurai gets an impressive victory late in the second round via KO. Apparently he completely outclassed Danzing.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs Sokoudjou- Sokoudjou gets the KO victory 23 seconds into round 1...Apparently Nog's boxing is not as good as we think since a judoka knocked him out.

Travis Wiuff vs James Lee- Lee stuns Wiuff with a left hand then jumps guard using a guillotine to submit Wiuff 39 seconds into round 1.

Kazuo Misaki vs Frank Trigg- Trigg gets a unanimous decision with some good takedowns and some good ground and pound

Joachim Hansen vs Jason Ireland- Hansen controls the entire fight and gets the submission via armbar in round 3.

So to conclude-

Both Wandy and Little Nog got KTFO, Gomi got choked out by a "UFC reject", another "UFC reject" Trigg gets a dominating win over the number 4 Pride MW....

I guess this clears the way for Shogun to claim the 205 belt...No idea what Wandy and Little Nog will do.

Wow..I really wish I had ordered this!


[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND="spoiler"]Yes, Dan Henderson did it!

Also, I'm disappointed that Minotoro lost his comeback match, but definitely impressed by that Sokoudjou dude. Minotoro had NEVER been knocked out, and this guy did it in under a minute...

Oh, and will someone take Gomi's belt away already? Enough is enough.[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND=""]what happened to Gomi? this has got to be the biggest night of upsets in the history of MMA...
Sakurai was badass "i'm looking forward to knocking out an American in America", well what do you know, he did [/EXPAND]

it was a pretty good event overall, very entertaining, haha.

 

[EXPAND="spoiler"]Don't worry. He'll win the rematch by split decision again and keep his belt. [/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND="Spoiler"]I have to agree, how many times has Gomi lost in the last 12 months? Totally ridiculous that he still has the belt.

On a sad note, will we ever see Wanderlei as the champion again? I have to believe Shogun is going to get the first shot at the belt and we all know that Wandy won't fight Shogun...

Really disappointed with Rogerio, thought he had a chance to not only be the Pride champ but also to beat Chuck.

On a bright note, maybe this Sokoudjou is the real deal? Could be a Randleman type of fluke but it may be a sign of things to come.

This cannot be good for Pride...the event was great but the winner was clearly the UFC.

Pride has been able to point to their superior talent, but not more.

Not to mention two of their biggest stars lost in devastating fashion.

[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND="Spoilers"]

Hendo v Silva - Yeah this was a great fight. Wandy looked really hesitant though, not at all like his usual hyper aggressive self. I think that Crocop KO really messed him up. But no doubt Hendo was really ON tonight, great striking and TDs. He also introduced a spinning backfist...new addition to his arsenal, which he used to stun Silva not too long before knocking him out. Silva had him in a little spot of trouble in Rd1 but that was the closest he looked to taking it IMO.

Gomi v Diaz - I'm gonna slightly disagree with your buddy on this one. Gomi DID gas, which was inexcusable, but up until that he was actually dominating pretty clearly. He opened up two cuts on Diaz within a few minutes with some nasty GnP, and put him on the canvas once by TD, then with a punch.
But then, for some reason he gassed like I've NEVER seen him do before...not even as bad as in the Aurelio non title fight. I mean Diaz was poking him in the face with jabs and he was just taking them.

I was actually AMAZED he survived that first round...he was totally gassed out with 2 minutes to go and was just eating shots and occasionally swinging back wild. His chin got him through that round, and got him through 2 minutes of unanswered shots from Diaz.

Letting his cardio go like that was inexcusable. I'm gonna wait and see what the official word was b/c he was simply not Pride material that night. At all. And I don't mean Pride champion...I mean Pride fighter...I've never seen a Pride LW gas out like that before.

You guy's will see what I mean if you catch the replays. I don't think I've ever seen ANYBODY gas this bad. This was the "I'm too tired, just go ahead and hit me" kinda bad.

Shogun v Overeem - You know, a call on an upset by Overeem actually looked to be a good bet...until Shogun came flying out of nowhere with a few diving punches. Overeem even landed a pretty solid upkick a few seconds before it happened. IMO it just proves what a adaptable fighter Shogun is.

Kharitonov v Russow - All in all a pretty standard undercard fight with one notable exceptoin. Russow taps out to an armbar, then begins arguing with the referee afterwards. Replay shows at least SIX consecutive taps before the ref steps in. On the other hand, I've heard others say that they thought the comment was regarding Kharitonov holding onto Russow's glove for the armbar. Eh. We'll see. To be fair, the armbar didn't look THAT tight so I was actually surprised Russow didn't slip out, but it still doesn't mean he would've won.

Sakurai v Danzig - Yeah Sakurai by all out domination. Danzig couldn't do much, and in the 2nd round Sakurai started picking him apart with leg kicks one by one...Danzig was almost getting swept off his feet by those shots...which set him up for a beautiful counterpunch that took him out.

Nogueira vs Sokoudjou - Nogueira didn't see it coming. He got set up by a high leg/body kick which caused him to duck his head. As he does so, Sokoudjou transitioned to a left that caught him right on the chin. Kinda funny b/c I was telling myself neither Nog had ever been KOd in MMA a few minutes prior.

Misaki vs Trigg - Not to take anything away from Trigg, but I think Misaki lost the fight. He didn't seem at all like the same guy who took the GP belt. Seems to have Gomi Syndrome.
Again, Trigg was impressive, but he hasn't fought a quality opponent in a long time, while Misaki just went through a WW GP. He should've been better.

Hansen vs Ireland - Pretty good fight...Hansen controlled the fight, although he seemed to have trouble finishing with the repeated RNC attempts. He went for a triangle near the end, which was looking pretty tight, and I thought he had it there as he was working it in tighter and tighter. Apparently he disagreed with me , b/c he transitioned beautifully to an armbar, then rolled to lock it in for the win.
[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND=""]Hansen was in trouble in the first round, he kept getting taken down. he was defending well, but he obviously lost round 1. i was expecting him to knock ireland out when he had the thai clinch. didn't he work the clinch twice?

the best fight IMO was Sakurai vs Danzig. i can't get over his quote, "i'm looking forward to knocking out an American in America," it was just too hilarious. and he did it too
i actually thought he would win by TKO via a leg kick instead of a KO, but hey, he fullfilled his wish but man, those leg kicks were brutal, i felt those, especially the one that made Danzig to a 180degree spin
i wonder if Sakurai would ever get a rematch against Matt Hughes. i think Saku has improved alot since that loss. would be a good fight IMO.[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND="spoiler"]I can't think of any UFC card this year that compares to this one. Not that the UFC has had bad cards, but PRIDE 33 was outstanding. I fail to see how this is bad for them...[/EXPAND]

 

[EXPAND="Spoiler"]First I want to say that you were right BigRed..Gomi was doing well in the first 3 minutes or so but after that he got dominated.

As to why this is bad for Pride that is pretty simple-

2 of their biggest stars got beaten soundly, going to hurt their credibility and their popularity overseas and in the U.S

Add in the fact that multiple UFC "rejects" such as Frank Trigg and Diaz won their fights easily.

Then the guy who was supposed to be fighting Wandy for the belt got knocked out in 23 seconds...which may be great or bad. If this Sokoudjo guy is for real, or he may just be a fluke.

A great event for the fans doesn't mean it was a great event for the organization.

[/EXPAND]

 

No spoilers here:

Also...their constant pathetic digs at the UFC and poor production values didn't help at all.

Closeups of screaming announcer lady and awful English were bad enough.
Then they started to copy the UFC with the "points" on each fighter..."out for revenge" and "mean streak" are not useful pointers!
Then there was the sad dig at UFC with Pride will own the universe. Ugh.

Oh and the audio was atrocious for a PPV.

Good entertaining fights, but if I was Dana White I'd be laughing my ass off. And I'd be looking at buying up some of the more entertaining fighters off that card as well.

 

None of these points are really going to affect anyone with a brain. Unfortunately, that means most of Sherdog are going to be lapping this up
A night of upsets is actually a very good thing for Pride. This adds some legitimacy to their divisions - an organisation that's constantly criticised for their top fighters being protected just had a real shake up in their most stagnant divisions. They've also had a hell of a lot of interest generated for them. Instead of "Yeah, Gomi/ Silva/ Nogueira won. Shocker," they've got a lot of people wondering what happens next. Pride's essentially got the rest of the year's fights set. Whether they indulge in common sense and actually use the opportunity they've got right now remains to be seen, but the fact is that they've got a seriously interesting bunch of fights set to go. If they follow what they've got at the moment, it'll be a very good year for both the organisation and the fans
That said, expect some crowing from Dana White over it; it's the nature of the game. Pride rag on production and guys who lost in Pride ripping through UFC divisions, UFC rag on guys losing in the UFC beating top Pride guys and so on. It's the nature of any game like this, you've simply got to promote your organisation as the one with the top fighters, otherwise the casual fans aren't going to bother watching
All in all, I thought this event was really good. I want Jerry Millen gone due to his suffering from serious degrees of spanneritis, Mauro's replacement needs to be shot and I'd really rather they didn't do events in Nevada due to the stupid commission there, but it was a bloody good show. I'd rather have seen these fights with the Japanese rules (one or two outcomes may have been different under those rules), but great fights are great fights
Kill the spoiler tags, it's aired everywhere it's going to

 

So you don't really think that Silva getting knocked out was a bad thing for Pride since he was their posterboy coming into the event?

Little Nog took a huge setback...he had a hard time getting a title shot before this...how hard is he going to have it after this?

Gomi lost...again. Pretty decisively, Japanese fans must be wondering what happened to their "stud"...plus I have to believe they will be wondering why he still has his belt?

Sever, I am curious as to what your opinions on the various fights(mostly upsets) are?

I know you thought like I did that Little Nog was a serious contender for the title, I still think he is but it was very shocking to see a Nog brother get knocked out especially by an unknown judo specialist...

I am very curious as to how Pride deals with the 205 belt...Do they have a rematch or do they give Shogun a crack at the belt first? If Shogun has the belt what will Wandy do?

He is in his "prime", or at least should be as far as age goes, will he go to another weight or organization or just be the gatekeeper?

Does Trigg get a shot at the MW belt? Or is there a rematch in store?

 

I don't think Silva will get his belt back. I think Dan has his number and will beat him again, but by decision--maybe. Actually, I was surprised it was a knockout. On MMA Playground I had Dan winning, but by decision. But anyway, I think if they fight again, Dan has a very good chance of winning.

If Shogun takes the title, Silva will almost certainly not fight him (I like Dan Henderson, but he should probably move back down to welterweight, because I don't think he can beat Shogun, who is the best in the world at this weight class--including Chuck Liddell).

If Arona is given a shot before the Chute Box guys, he'll very probably get the belt. If Silva gets the title shot against Arona, he might be able to try kicking Arona's feet into a split decision again, but it isn't likely to work. Shogun, on the other hand, would make for an interesting rematch...

Dan has to give up on one of the belts. But what happens when he does? They could do a tournament for it or something...

 

I'm not entirely sure about Silva vs Hendo 3. You can't take anything away from Dan's performance that night...I was really impressed how he showcased that spinning backfist. However, Silva did not appear to be himself...he was much more cautious than normal. There are also rumors he was sick before the fight and was briefly hospitalized. Probably just rumors, but I have to admit he looked pretty off his game, especially considering it was his natural weight.

I think it's going to come down in the end to what the Chute Boxe guys wanna do...whether they want Shogun to step up and take over or if they think Wandy's time's not up yet. I would be surprised if either of the two Chute Boxe stars wasn't confident they could take that 205 belt from anybody out there.

 

I would like to see Shogun take the belt away...but I don't know if he could keep it away from Arona.

 

Not especially on an organisational level, no, just like the UFC didn't crumble when Hughes got taken apart by St Pierre, Franklin got wrecked by Silva and it won't when Liddell loses either. He'll have taken a marketability hit on a personal level, particularly in the US, and using his image as the sole selling point of events won't be as sure a move as it was before, short-term, but thinking beyond the next month or so when the "OMG Wandy exposed/ overrated/ never any good" drivel dies down on far less intelligent forums than this one, it's a good thing for Pride in a business sense - they've got a lot of fights and a lot of interest to work with now. Upsets are very good for business, hence why people actually have the fights rather than just working it out on paper. Few things can generate interest like a completely re-jigged division, especially when the division in question was stagnant. Shogun was never going to fight Wanderlei, thus Shogun wasn't getting the belt unless he lost it, hardly anyone wanted to watch Arona fight for the title again and it didn't look like Noguiera was ever getting his shot for one reason or another, there wasn't much going to happen there. With the fallout from this event, things are going to happen in at least two divisions and people are going to want to watch what happens

That all depends on Pride. He's the latest victim of the Randleman Effect (tm) and I honestly believe that if those two guys fight ten times, Noguiera comes out on top quite happily in nine of them. Fans like Noguiera, he seems to be a company man (I've never heard any complaints out of him on the subject of his not getting a title shot) and he's got a very good back catalogue of fights. It makes sense for them to let him avenge his loss and work back into title contention, which will be much more likely since he has a win over Henderson. They could shaft him, they could not, it's all down to them. With him and Silva both coming off losses, there's a fair few fights that they can make

Like I said before the event - they should have made him and Diaz toe the NSAC's line, cut the extra few pounds and had a title fight. Gomi simply doesn't train when the belt's not on the line, by the looks of it these days. Non-title fights are stupid when they're actually in the weight class; for some reason Pride are petrified of Gomi defending that belt. I'd have originally said it was an ethnocentric thing (Japanese organisations have always longed for Japanese champions; that's why Pride fed Sakuraba to the wolves for so long and why it's almost impossible to beat Musashi or Masato by decision in K-1), but even his Shockwave match against Ishida was non-title, even though he was the linear champion. It's a stupid situation and something needs to change
Pride's LW GP is this year; Gomi's got to be in it, with Diaz's win over him, Diaz should be in the mix, Hansen keeps winning, Aurelio could well be there; that's three guys with wins over Gomi and there are some notable new talents in that division too; there's a paradigm shift due there.

There's a hell of a lot that could happen there, but predictions on what'll happen require making one pretty big assumption - we must assume that DSE meant it when they said that there will be many more title fights (I believe they said a title fight every non-GP event). If that holds true, Henderson's got a decision to make - they've got four titles, he's holding two of them. If there are to be a lot of title defences, he's realistically going to have to drop one of them, which could well lead to Pride shelving the LWGP for the year and having the GP be for the belt of whichever title he vacates. Personally, I think he's better suited to the 183lb class, so he could drop the middleweight belt. That leads in to either another GP or just a series of fights on regular events, in which I think Shogun would come out on top and Wanderlei wrecks a few cans and/ or takes fights outside his weightclass for the next couple of years. He's said he's only going to fight for four more years at the maximum, it wouldn't be a bad ending to a storied career
Failing that, Henderson could drop the welterweight belt, they have a few good fights set to go there too (Trigg/ Kang, Kang/ Filho are just two that come to mind) and we see Silva and Noguiera work their way back up for a shot at him. I'll be absolutely amazed if we don't see the Silva/ Henderson rubber match at Shockwave, be it for the belt or not

Trigg's a revitalised fighter. This weight class suits him much better and he's switched up his training very well. I don't see him getting past Filho or beating Henderson, but if he chooses to keep fighting for Pride, he'll be a bad matchup for most in that division
There's a lot that can happen now, much more than before the event happened, hence why, all-told, this has been a good thing for the organisation. If all the upsets occurred in sucky fights during a sucky event, it would have been disasterous, but they happened in exciting matches in an event that a fair few are calling the best event on American soil. I don't know about that, but as a whole, it certainly eclipses any whole event I can think of held over there in the last few years

 

Thanks for the recap...always interesting to see your opinions.

There is an interview with Silva postfight on Sherdog where amongst other things(some of which were ha to understand) he said he wants to fight till he is 36.

I hope he isn't done but it does seem like he could use a hiatus to recover from the two knockouts....He looked almost timid against Henderson which was just strange.

I really want to see more from Sokoudjou, he seems to be very explosive and showed some good striking. It did seem a bit of a "fluke" punch, but before he threw it he had some solid technique.

I just re-watched the Gomi-Diaz fight and I was left wondering what happened?

He showed no technique from about 3 minutes until he was submitted, almost like he turned into an amateur.

Did he really gas after 3 minutes?