PRIDE FC: Final Conflict Last Thoughts

November 9, 2003

Tokyo, Japan

- Olympic Gold medallist in Judo, Hidehiko Yoshida, made a lot of fans by showing his warrior heart and battling eventual tournament champion Vanderlai Silva to a decision (and with a Gi no less)

- Bas "El Guapo" Rutten and Randy "The Natural" Couture had a great opening bit to the PRIDE telecast pretending to grapple because Rutten said his mother told him not to hit old people.

- PRIDE FC raised the bar to a very high standard for the production quality of MMA events

- Randy Couture was a guest announcer for the PPV event and was pretty good

- Randy Couture said at the end of the telecast that he would like to fight Vanderlai Silva

- Couture also said that he will be defending his light heavyweight title January 31, 2004 against Vitor Belfort at the UFC 46

- It looks like there will be three events on December 31st - PRIDE, K-1, and Antonio Inoki's event all battling for the Japanese TV rating supremacy

(11/9/03)