When it comes to Pride FC — the incredibly awesome/incredibly corrupt Japanese MMA promotion that reigned over the sport from 1997-2007 — there are a handful of fights that us hardcores typically praise as “the best” in the organization’s history. For some, it’s the all-out ballsiness of Don Frye vs. Yoshihiro Takayama at Pride 21. For others, it’s the freakish size discrepancy (a regular feature of Pride matchmaking back then) and underdog story that occurred when Antonio Nogueira took on Bob Sapp at Pride Shockwave. But for most, the greatest Pride fight of all time came when Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko met in the ring at Pride Final Conflict 2005.
The fight, which saw two of the sport’s greatest fighters solidify their legacies in a 20-minute battle of wills, was almost unanimously voted as not only the Fight of the Year for 2005, but the Fight of the Decade as well. And now, we might be seeing round 2 (well technically, rounds 4-8, but you get the point).
This September, Japanese upstart promotion Rizin Fighting Federation will be kicking off the first round of its first-ever Open Weight Grand Prix tournament, pitting 16 of the baddest (non-UFC) fighters against one another “in order to determine just who is the best fighter in the world today.” Though the bracket is nowhere close to being filled yet, the tournament has already attracted the likes of Cro Cop, former PRIDE middleweight champion turned disgraced UFC outcast Wanderlei Silva, and Kazuyuki Fujita.
However, things took an interesting turn this afternoon when Cro Cop posted the above image to his official Facebook page, seemingly insinuating that his former rival Emelianenko would be joining him in the tournament as well.
The addition of Emelianenko to the Open Weight GP would obviously be a huge get for Rizin, and doesn’t seem too far-fetched in terms of the Russian’s current career trajectory. “The Last Emperor” has already competed under the Rizin banner, for starters — having previously picked up a first round TKO over Singh Jaideep at Rizin 2 last year — and closed the book on a potential UFC run with his disastrous performance against Fabio Maldonado back in June.
That being said, the Fedor camp has yet to breathe any life into the rumors, and there’s also that whole Fedor vs. Tito Ortiz at Bellator thing to consider, which seems like the far safer option for the notoriously picky Fedor to choose. Basically, either Cro Cop knows something we don’t or he’s just California dreaming for the time being.
Speaking of which, here is a video of Cro Cop and Pat Barry singing “California Dreaming,” just because.