According to Josh Gross at Sherdog.com, the sale of Pride Fighting Championships to the Fertita brothers has been finalized.
However, two sources tell Sherdog.com that the deal has in fact been finalized, and that former PRIDE CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara has said as much to former DSE employees in the last 48-hours.
Citing Issues with several PRIDE fighter contracts, on Wednesday MMAWeekly.com reported that there is a class action lawsuit on behalf of PRIDE fighters looking to get out of their contracts. White, in a conversation with the media on Thursday afternoon, denied any knowledge of the dispute.
Is the deal really completed? Still sounds somewhat unlikely to me, especially considering the news MMAWeekly broke Wednesday night that “multiple fighters under contract to DSE and Pride are filing a class action lawsuit against the organization for an undisclosed amount of money.”
Gross doesn’t provide any factual or public knowledge information that the deal is truly finalized, so until we hear an official word from Zuffa and/or PrideFC, I’m not holding my breath.
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Nice post Dr. J, considering some of us were wondering what was going on, were still unsure of whats happeneing.. like everyone else i guess. The lawsuits make me even more apprehensive, pride sues the fighters, the fighters sue them back.. sigh.. why did this have to happen to pride???
The fighters probably have more precedent in regard to breach of the contracts, the organization probably has the better lawyers.. i could see pride declaring bankrup and ******** everyone over…
Pride offers so much to the mma world, the GP tourneys (though i never liked the idea of the open weight tourneys) this comin LWGP looked AMAZING! theres alot of pride fighters who HATE the UFC, and they most likely will just retire, or wait for big paydays in small shows ala Frank shamrock.. Guys like Josh Barnett and randleman we will never see in the UFC again..
@BV
Great minds think alike. I have to say I agree with you on your post, it sucks how this is all playing out, everyone is losing in this situation CURRENTLY, I did predict that this whole buyout would mean trouble for MMA, and it has brought about nothing good since ensuing. There are fighters as you said that absolutely hate the UFC after all the years of back and forth warring and they will not fight for Zuffa and Dana so it will definitely suck to see greats like Fedor compete on the “smokey bar” circuit. I just hope that Wand and Henderson don’t go that route as well .. I know that Shogun is young and hungry so he will def. fight wherever the big guns are.
whats josh barnetts beef with the ufc?