Pride Middleweight Grand Prix 2005 [DVD]

Having bought a number of UFC dvd's (best of 2007, 2008, 2008, UFC99, UFC104), this is my first PRIDE purchase and it was defintely worth it. The box set contains 3 events over 6 dvds - Total Elimination, Critical Countdown and Final Conflict 2005.

TOTAL ELIMINATION:

This event consists solely of the opening round of the 16 man middleweight tournament. There are some exciting fights, but, as the commentators point out, a lot of the fighters seem to be a bit hesitant and trying to play it safe in order to reach the next round. It still contains a number of entertaining fights. Full fight card below:

- Wanderlei Silva vs. Hidehiko Yoshida - good striking vs judo matchup.
- Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Quinton Jackson - explosive striking matchup.
- Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Dong Sik Yoon - OK fight, but a bit of a mismatch.
- Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Dan Henderson - really liked this fight, good BJJ display
- Alistair Overeem vs. Vitor Belfort - good matchup
- Igor Vovchanchyn vs. Yuki Kondo - not the most exciting fight, but OK
- Ricardo Arona vs. Dean Lister - least exciting fight of the opening round
- Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Kevin Randleman - nice wrestling vs judo matchup.

CRITICAL COUNTDOWN:

This event contains the quarter finals of the middleweight tournament plus 4 non tournament fights.

I'm not going to give details of the quarters (for people who don't want to know the outcomes), but will say that the remaining fighters pick up the pace and the excitement in the quarters after playing it safe (for some of them) in the opening round. All four quaterfinals are good, exciting fights and one specifically often pops up on people's "top 10 mma fights of all time" lists.

Non tournament fights:
- Sergei Kharitonov vs. Pedro Rizzo - exciting fight, lots of striking
- Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Pawel Nastula - interesting fight between former PRIDE heavyweight champ Nogueira and Judo Olympic gold medalist Pawel Nastula in his PRIDE debut
- Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic vs. Ibragim Magomedov - dominant performance
- Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Makoto Takimoto - not the most exciting fight, but OK

FINAL CONFLICT

This event contains a tournament reserve match between 2 of the losing quarter finalists (in case someone gets injured during the semi's and has to be replaced), the semi finals and the final of the middleweight tournament. The reserve match is pretty good, but the semis and the final are all good, exciting fights.

Non tournament fights:

- Fabricio Werdum vs. Roman Zentsov - good BJJ display
- David "Tank" Abbott vs. Hidehiko Yoshida - very good "Old school" striking vs judo display.
- Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic - very good fight, second best fight on the box set. Cro Cop was the most devastating heavyweight striker in PRIDE and Fedor spends a large portion of the fight standing up with him.

Overall, I think this is a very good buy. There are some fights that aren't all that good or exciting, but more than enough really good matchups to make up for it.

Bought this as a reccomendation from the UFC forum as i wanted to see what pride was like.

A must have for any big MMA follower every fight is pretty good with some far exceeding my expectations.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueria vs Marichio "shogun" Rua a must see fight for any MMA follower one of the most exciting fight i have ever seen

This is an astonishing amount of high quality fighting for ridiculously little money. 95% of the fights are top notch, with some great skills on display. Even the ones that are less exciting display some masterful groundwork.