I haven't been on here much and I just got caught up. Great matches being discussed, and glad a few of you are going back and watching the best TUF seasons. They do kill the challenges after they were pretty harmful in the 2nd season. It was way more about it being a reality game show instead of a "fighting" show. Glad they made the adjustments.
Another thing in the early seasons, there seemed to be a lot more pussies and injuries. It's rare these days that people would blow the opportunity.
The Don Frye vs (I can't remember, but a japanese guy) in pride was considered the more entertaining brawling match for MANY years. Until the Griffen v Bonner match happened.
IMO the sport has changed a bit too much with USA(UFC) becoming the top of the game. When Pride and UFC were competing they had close to equal talent, but Pride put on WAAAY more entertaining fights. There would be freakshow matches (185lbs guys vs 350+ lbs guys) and there were squash matches to display how awesome a fighter is. They built up fighters and made it so when there was a big time match up....it was a HUGE deal. But you still had guys like Cro Cop fighting a judo guy and kicking his head off...just for our pleasure. And there would be like 10 fights on the pay per views. UFC right now is all about making 5 matchups that will definitely be televised that are all for title contention. Screw that, I wanna see Anderson Silva destroy people in the clinch as often as I can. Not just a built up title shot every 4-6 months. The UFC would never have a fight like Sakuraba's last fight. Because if he doesn't get the tap there and loses...then he drops lower on the card and makes less money. But the fights like those where he takes tons of punishment as a risk just to get the tap and please the crowd is LEGENDARY!! That element has left the sport in the UFC. It's more that than eliminating soccer kicks to the head(which was fun to watch). And the reasoning Pride took out elbows was because is caused too many cuts that would end fights. And no one wants to see a fight end because of an elbow. My initial reason I didn't like Florian. His goal was to cut a guy open to end the fight. Ask Alex Karalexis. He has changed a lot since then, but i saw a massive difference in the mentality of the sport from US to Japan.
I personally think the UFC should reward guys like Guida, Paul Taylor, Marcus Davis win or lose...and they might be based on locker room bonuses. But give us more fights like that. It's gotten to the point where the fight nights are usually more entertaining than the PPVs...despite the lesser talent.
Also, in Pride check out the Bushito matches. Most fighters are now in Dream I think. But there tournaments were VERY entertaining. Names like Kawajiri, Gomi, Yves Edwards, Crazy Horse, Joaquim Hansen, Aoki, Ishida, Sakurai....etc. If they are really collaborating with Strikeforce that could be fun. The Strikeforce card was very good, and all entertaining fights. Well done strikeforce. I don't think they can do much better than that. BTW a Rogers v Fedor rematch is retarded, and I have no clue why the interviewer asked that right after the fight. He lost, there was no controversy....why would he get an immediate rematch? It likely will be Verdum or Overeem. Which will be good...both Pride guys btw. I haven't watched Overeem much since he was a heavyweight. He used to have skinny arms that would allow for unstopable gulletine chokes. But he never seemed to be much more than a one trick pony. Verdum I think poses more of a threat, but shouldn't be a factor on the feet. Could be an interesting ground war if it gets there.
How has no one mentioned Jason "Mayhem" Miller. What an amazing entrance lol, and a hell of a fight. He did awesome. Really won me over as a fan.
Sorry for the essay, had a lot to say.
p.s. havent watched TUF since the fights started getting good

I'll watch the marathon before the Finale.