Friday, March 23, 2007

Pride Being Sold To Zuffa?

It looks like the volatility of position in the MMA world applies not just to fighters, but also to the organizations. A couple years ago people argued that the UFC could never match the salaries of Pride fighters, and as a result, Pride would always steal away the UFC's top talent and remain the superior league. Now we hear that a deal selling Pride to Zuffa is all but sealed.

It looks like the league will continue to be run separately, but there will be no barrier to cross-promotion fights, which seems like a good thing. I'm uncertain how this will affect the MMA scene in the long run. Zuffa seems to have displaced what was, for many years, the dominant competitor worldwide, but with Showtime Elite XC, and the IFL there seems to be more competition domestically. And then there's K-1, which continues to have a TV deal in Japan, but not nearly the caliber of fighters that Pride did.

At least the next few years won't be boring.

Also, although I can still post, I haven't been able to actually view the blog for a while, so I cannot respond to any comments. Blogger seems to have pissed off the great fire wall or something. . .

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