What if Pride Would Have Bought the UFC?

People in the States have always just seen UFC as being MMA. To the casual fan, PRIDE never meant anything. If they had bought the UFC (which obviously would never have happened since the UFC haven't bankrupted themselves, and PRIDE couldn't afford to run themselves let alone buy out someone else) they would most likely have kept the same branding, since it was known to American audiences. UFC dropped the PRIDE name because it doesn't need it, the UFC is much better known in Japan than PRIDE ever was in the States.

As for what else might change, I can't see too much. The rules are set by the Athletic Commissions so head stomps and what not wouldn't happen. Probably most of the freakshow fights wouldn't happen in the States for the same reason. Questions would still be asked about why so many PRIDE fighters look horrible and out of shape in the US (hint: they do drug tests in the States). Hopefully the PRIDE habit of letting their champions not bother to defend their belts wouldn't transfer over.

Basically PRIDE would have had two options, keep the UFC as a seperate promotion (like UFC and WEC) or run more PRIDE shows in the states to cover the UFC's schedule. Which would raise interesting questions. Would PRIDE have kept using American rules for US shows and their own rules in Japan? Would they move the Grand Prix's to the States? Who knows? MMA in Japan is slumping though, whereas it keeps getting bigger and bigger in the States, and generally the popular fighters in the States are already in the UFC or have been recently. Unfortunately, the likes of Takanori Gomi doesn't mean anything to an average American audience. So if PRIDE wanted to run more PRIDE shows in the states they would need those the UFC 'stars'.

Even if it was the PRIDE brand that people saw, they'd still just view it as they do the UFC just with a new name and a Japanese flavour. Ultimately it's still two guys kicking lumps out of each other. Actually, something like Fedor vs. Zuluzinho isn't going to make MMA look good to the average viewer at all. Frankly, given that PRIDE couldn't run themselves and their alleged connections to some rather dubious elements of Japanese society, I'd rather MMA be represented by the UFC all told.