UFC acquires Pride FC

After years of Dana White calling the Japanese "too difficult to work with," UFC has officially bought Pride FC.

Drew tells me that UFC made somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million last year from PPVs, so purchasing some of the world's biggest fighters along with the rights to the only major rival for a little under 70 million puts this deal among the pantheon of bargains along with Seward's folly and the Louisiana Purchase.

It is unknown whether UFC and Pride will remain separate and hold cross-promotional events a few times a year or if UFC will drain the Pride roster, moving all of its stars to UFC. This would essentially relegate Pride to some sort of minor league MMA.

What we do know is that this move immediately makes the Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight divisions more interesting than they have ever been. The Heavyweight division now consists of the new Champ Randy Couture, a still-dangerous Tim Sylvia, Mirko "Cro Cop", Andrei Arlovski, and of course, Fedor Emelianenko. Fedor is widely regarded as the most dangerous fighter in the world and he would probably destroy any of these other contenders, but it will be interesting to see how it all gets booked following the expected Couture-Cro Cop fight. I'd like to see the winner of that get Fedor, while the newly-bearded Arlovski might have enough momentum to win an epic fourth fight with Sylvia.

In the Light Heavyweight division, interest will rise soon with the booking of Chuck Liddell and Rampage Jackson for UFC 71. Rampage is Liddell's only unavenged fight and promises to be a greater challenge than Ortiz has ever been. Hopefully, Liddell will retain, setting the UFC up to make a killing on the rubber match. Let's not forget about Tito Ortiz, who is expected to fight at UFC 72. He could take on Pride superstar Wanderlei Silva who was lined up for a Liddell bout before it fell through early last year. Depending on who wins those matchups, we could be seeing the Liddell-Silva fight in a couple of months. I wouldn't complain over a Rampage-Ortiz fight either.

With this new acquisition, the next few PPVs could look something like this:
UFC 71-Liddell-Rampage
UFC 73-Hughes-St. Pierre III, Couture-Cro Cop
UFC 74-Fedor-Sylvia/Arlovski
UFC 75-Silva-Ortiz
UFC 76-Couture/Cro Cop winner-Fedor/Sylvia/Arlovski winner
UFC 78-Liddell/Rampage winner-Silva/Ortiz winner (providing this wouldn't force a UFC 66 rematch)