K-1 vs Pride for stealing fighters

[Cracked_Knuckle]

K-1 scoring with the sneaky theft of Sakuraba hasta seriously be hurting Pride. Did Sakakibara mention back at the begining of tha year that Pride will be holdin some stand up events late this year too?

If Gary Goodridges story about Sapp is on the mark, then Pride are already trying to steal some K-1 guys, though fuck only knows why they would take Sapp after he has lost so much apeal (not to mention fights) recently.Who else do you think would be on their hit list?

I think they have learnt with Leko, and will probably focus on try ta get guys like Lebanner and Sefo that have already shown some MMA skills, just incase their stand up stuff, just like their 4 years in the planning US event, never gets off the ground. They might go for someone like Akiyama, Kid, Genki, Uno too....pouching Kid would really hurt K-1.

This is kinda a exciting time now. We might see a bit of a shuffle of fighters and some matchs we never thought of.

[Herbo]

Pride announced that they would be holding standup and grappling events this yet. What ever happened with that?

[( o Y o )]

Who knows if or when they'll do that. They seem to have a habit of announcing things before thinking them all the way through.

I guess for a hit list after Sapp, in no particular order:

KID
Sefo
Tokoro
LeBanner
Akiyama
Aerts (maybe...for name value)
Remy (as above)
Greco
Ruslan (lives here so easy to get ahold of)

[Dado]

Peter Graham said he would be fighting in pride in standup rules only.

Source: some guy on k-1 fans said he met him and Graham said that.

[( o Y o )]

If Graham says that a whole lot it will succed in one of two things. Getting him thrown off K-1 Oceania by orders from Japan. Get him signed to a long term contract by K-1 just to spite PRIDE. lol

[LethalSassonic]

Lebanner is a hot name for MMA, it seems some fans want to see him full-time in MMA, but I don't know if PRIDE can get him, he's maybe the most popular K-1 fighter.

[eatingfish]

Perhaps Gomi can get Genki Sudo into Pride. They're good friends and maybe Sudo's still pissed off deep down about that early stoppage against Kid on new years.

[AKA]

Lebanner is a hot name for MMA, it seems some fans want to see him full-time in MMA, but I don't know if PRIDE can get him, he's maybe the most popular K-1 fighter.

U have 2 points and u smell the third one ;)

[Cracked_Knuckle]

Thinking about Genki, I don't think they would get him. He is earning big money with K-1 I guess, and fighting lotsa subpar guys for it. I think him and Gomi said they would never fight too.

[eatingfish]

I don't think it would matter that Gomi & Sudo won't fight each other since that occurs quite a bit anyway (eg Chute box, BTT members won't fight each other). What I think would be the problem is the pretty big step up in competition since like you said he's getting paid a lot to fight subpar guys in Hero's.

[Lord Gaul]

I have to say that I like this. It makes for a more competitive environment for the companies and the fighters benifit greatly from the competing markets. You can always get more money by threatning to go to the other guys.