Pride Tournament Winners

2000 Grand Prix OpenWeight Tournament : Mark Coleman . The most famous of all the Pride tournaments by far in my opinion, featured Royce Gracie vs Kazushi Sakuraba match, Sakuraba vs Mezger (dont even want to talk about it). Mark Coleman was impressive winning the tournament beating Maasaki Satake, Akira Shoji, Kaz Fujita, and Igor Vovchanyen.

2003 Grand Prix Middleweight : Wanderlei Silva . Axe Murderer at his finest going through Sakuraba, Yoshida, and Rampage. Was even more impressive with how dominant he was. This tournament sums up how good Silva was for this time period.

2004 Grand Prix Heavyweight: Fedor Emelianenko . See that last line on Silva's tournament win. Ya same thing goes for Fedor. He was simply the best during this time. We got to realize it during this tournament. He ran through Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman taking one fo the sickest slams ever and tapping Kevin minutes later, Ogawa, and Rodrigo Nogueira. Shit, that is impressive. Great tournament to, Nog Fedor fight was awesome

2005 Bushido Lightweight: Takanori Gomi . Beat Kawarji the Shooto cahmpion in the first round. This was hands down number 1 and 2 in the tournament, Gomi choked him out in the 1st. Beat Luiz Azaredo and met Hayato Sukarai in the finals. Sakurai had defeated Pulver to get there. Sukarai went for a hip toss and ended up with Gomi on top of him raining down blows. Fight over.

2005 Bushido Grand Prix Weltrerweight: Dan Henderson . Not s many participants in this tournament but Hendo still impressively won beating Ryo Chonan, Akira Gono, and Murilo Bustamante in the finals. Not the greatest tournament but an important one for the career of Dan Henderson.

2005 Grand Prix Middleweight: Mauricio Rua . Ok this is maybe the most underrated of the Pride tournaments as far as the winners recognition and people he faced. Beat Rampage Jackson, Antonio Noguiera, Overeem, and Ricardo Arona. Holy shit , talk about tough draws. Beat every one of them. Extremely impressive.

2006 Grand Prix Welterweight: Kazuo Misaki . Can you guys spell upset? Thats what happened when Misaki beat Dan Henderson in the 2nd round after beating Baroni in the first. Then lost to Filho but Filho dropped out. Beat Dennis Kang in the finals as a replacement.

2006 Grand Prix Openweight: Mirko Cro Cop . Mirko on fire, beat Minowa, Yoshida, Wanderlei Silva in a great semi fight, and Josh Barnett. Thats why I lvoe openweight. 1 round your fighting the Axe Murderer the next your fighting Josh Barnett? Crazy, and impressive that Mirko won the last of the Grand Prix's.

at the request of wolf

Damn I love the pride tourneys and this is why i was always a pride fanboy lol. I miss those arguments i used to have back in the day of pride was better then the UFC.

gotta agree, dont worry that thread is coming from me tomorow gonna match up the Pride champions and UFC champs from time period and see who people think would win

uh oh your gonna start all kinds of arguments lol. Im curious to know how many people on here were actual viewers of pride due to the fact that it was not as accessible a the UFC. I always felt it was an overall better show. Other then the horrible long pauses sometimes between fights.

I would say Pride honestly had the better fighters overall, UFC was still a better production when it was around.

I watched Pride cause of Ken and Guy but shit alot of guys jumped ship and went to Pride for the money. No one should be surprised if this happens again in the future.

Jens Pulver, Coleman, Randleman, Henderson, Frye, etc. etc. they all left to go there

But they had their own stars too. Gomi, Fedor, both Nogs, the emergence of the entire chute box team. The saku gracie wars. Even without those fighters you named pride had more then enough legitimate stars. I hope it does happen in the future. It makes the mma world much more interesting.

I'd rank Rua's win the best of them all based on competition. I mean Wanderlei destroyed Rampage but not quite as efficiently at Rua did. Rampage did not even want to try with Rua.

What Rua did then in a tourney that stacked may never be replicated again.

exactly, thats my main point, Jens Pulver goes tehre and doesnt beat the Japanese fighters. It was a stacked organization

I really believe that some day a fighter is going to wisen up, create his own organization take fighters with them , pay them and have it work. Affliction was dumb how they did it. Same thing happened in tennis, football, basketball, and virtually any other sport you can think of. Sooner or later there is going to be a big pay hike IMO.

Rua beat that ass like tehre was no tomorow

Bird, you think the Coleman win was the most famous and Shogun's the most underrated?

Shogun's win still resonates with everyone and was during the modern MMA era(kind of) while Coleman's win is a relic of history that modern haves have to be educated on.

well then Im wrong Wolf

Wouldnt you say the most famous fight in Pride history happened at Pride Grand Prix 2000?

Maybe Im wrong, but down here in Texas it seems like no one knows shit about Rua, I just think Mirko, Wanderlei, Coleman got alot of glory when Rua ran through the competition like no other and doesnt get the accolades they seem to get for it

sorry I didnt please ya

and I didnt say Colemans win was the most famous I say the most Famous tournament by far

Coleman's win was the last tournament I ever got familar with.

before 100, most modern MMA fans didn't even know Coleman won anything in Pride.

Right around this time period I lost some interest in the sport, didnt follow it as closely as I did especially UFC, I watched Pride when I watched MMA cause thats where Guy and Ken were fighting. Want to say around UFC 30's is when Pete Williams went back to UFC and same with Tra

bump

Ruas run was astonishing considering the competition, I was especially impressed with the ease he handled Arona on the ground.