John McCarthy and Josh Thomson discussed how PRIDE tried to sway the odds in favor of their favorite sons.
PRIDE Fighting Championships began as a Japanese MMA promotion company. Its inaugural event was held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997. Arguably PRIDE was the most popular MMA promotion during the early 2000’s. PRIDE over the years, held more than sixty mixed martial arts events, broadcast to an estimated 40 countries worldwide.
It was back in March 2007 where Dream Stage Entertainment (DSE) sold PRIDE to Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta III, co-owners of Zuffa, who owned the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the time. The rest is history.
During their most recent episode of the ‘Weighing In‘ podcast, Josh Thompson and John McCarthy discussed PRIDE and how the organization conducted itself during it’s tenure.
Josh commented:
“If you guys listen to any former fighters that fought over in PRIDE, there was some legit, f**king foolery going on over there.”
Thomson went on to relay his own experience commenting on the disorganization associated with who he’d been told he would fight, then cancelled due to injury, on-again, off-again, different fighters, etc. All that being said it ended up he had to take a last minute flight to Japan to fight the original fighter he was scheduled to match-up with, who arguably wasn’t hurt in the first place.
John McCarthy weighed in saying:
“I would tell guys going over there all the time, hey, watch for this, watch for this, don’t do this, don’t do this, when they try to do this – tell them no, I need this. Fighters were saying I’ll go over there and I’ll put up with that crap and stuff. At the time people were making more money in PRIDE. It was a grand show and people wanted to be in it.”
Continuing ‘Big John’ said:
“They did a lot of underhanded stuff trying to sway the odds towards their favorite sons.”
Josh acknowledged the $$$ saying:
“The one fight I had (with PRIDE), I made more money in that fight than I did in all my previous 3 UFC fights. It’s cash. It’s all cash – cash in hand.”
What do you think of the comments made by Josh Thomson and John McCarthy regarding PRIDE FC?