The HW division was damn good back then but you're right in that it was all in Pride. Don't see why that makes a diff. though. I wouldn't care where the HW's were centered. So long as we could get a decent number of great ones. Nowadays, it's complete garbage.
As for the GSP v. Alves fight some were proposing (before the fight) that Alves couldn't even deal with Fitch's wrestling so how was he to deal with GSP's? I was skeptical of their argument but they turned out to be 100% correct. I guess I bought into the UFC hype too on that one. Alves really had no chance apart from a lucky haymaker or knee. That wasn't even a fight earlier, was it? I mean 5 round sof GSP beating up on Alves and around midway rd 2 is was obvious that Alves really didn't know how to coutner GSP's wrestling.
Watch the Fitch Alves fight. Alves was horrible against countering wrestling in that fight as well and Fitch is no GSP.
Alves did beat Hughes or ......Grandaddy Hughes.
White is a genius at merketing.
This PPV only had one real fight. Lesnar v Mir.
Anyone really think Bisping was going to win?
A lot of us got got on the GSP Alves fight. Alves had, at best, a puncher's chance from the start. In reality that match up was never close at all.
To top it all off, the 2 fights that were already decided way before they atarted were more entertaining thn the fight whicha ctually was a decent match up.
The heavyweight fighters now are much more well rounded then before. Just give them time to develop.
And it's really unfair to blame the UFC for how damn good GSP is. Alves was EASILY the No. 1 contender regardless of the org. And yes Fitch was taking downAlves, but that was damn near 3 years ago. Alves isn't anywhere near the fighter he was back then.
And yeah, I thought Bisping had a chance to win. Whoops, guess I was wrong. I still remember picking Hendo to win thatfight though...
And I'm trying to figure out what Dana has to do with all this, considering all those fights made sense from the beginning... Or what you're talkingabout has to do with our previous conversation. You wanna talk about how this match up wasn't a good match up but yet all these fights made sense. Alveswas the No. 1 fighter at 170, Mir just killed Nog and had beaten Brock which made sense, Bisping and Hendo were both lined up for title shots and this was away for to clear out some contenders (I've came to conclusion that Okami will never, ever get a title shot
).
If you want me to be honest, you are really reaching for a reason to bash Dana, for no apparent reason at all...