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Official Goodbye Pride Thread
I don't know if anybody else feels this way but I just wanted to say a personal goodbye to one of the most important organizations in MMA history. If anybody else wants to I encourage you to do so. Please only serious goodbyes and no flaming, from one fan of the greatest sport on earth to another show respect for the loss of this important figure in MMA history. I'll start it off:
It was with a heavy heart that I tuned into Pride 34 this night. fresh from my hysteria over the GSP beatdown I found myself sobered as the preshow played against my retinas. This is it It's over. The reign of one of the most important institutions in MMA's short history was soon coming to an end. All the shit here on sherdog, from the classic "is UFC better than Pride?" thread to the billionth "Fedor would Pwn the UFC HW Divsion", seemed inconsequential and trivial. Better or worse it doesn't matter, PrideFC contributed something to MMA that the UFC, Bodog, Pro Elite, Icon, Cage Rage, Shootoo, Deep, and the hundreds of other MMA shows all over the world will never be able to bring. It is something intangible. Something you could never quite put your finger on. But something you felt every new years eve when a grown man in a cloth thong beat a steady tattoo on a massive drum in front thousands of fans. It is a feeling I will dearly miss. Though it's body remains it's spirit is dead. With new rules, new weight classes, and the loss of Japanese control PrideFC no longer truly lives. It is instead merely UFC Japan in a ring. When Sakikibara said his final farewell in front of an assembled group of fighters in the middle of the Pride ring I honestly shed a tear. I didn't cry, I didn't weep but I shed a tear or two. Goodbye Pride. Goodbye Sakikibara. Goodbye Takada. Goodbye DSE. This marks the end of a truly great era in annals of our sport.
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