UFC Owners Suing Former Pride Ownership Group

The following was reported by www.mmajunkie.com

PRIDE FC Worldwide Holdings, which was created after the UFC’s primary owners purchased the former Japanese-based PRIDE Fighting Championships, has filed suit against Dream Stage Entertainment, the organization’s previous ownership group.

The news comes from Dave Meltzer in the print edition of Wrestling Observer.

According to the report, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta claim that Dream Stage Entertainment, Dream Stage Holdings, and DSE President Nobuyuki Sakakibara defrauded millions of dollars during last year’s sale of PRIDE and PRIDE Bushido.

The UFC’s ownership group first announced its intention to purchase PRIDE in March 2007 and confirmed that the sale — or more specifically, the acquisition of assets such as the PRIDE video library and some (but not all) of the fighters’ contracts — had been finalized two months later.

Originally, UFC President Dana White announced that PRIDE would continue to operate as a separate entity while promising “SuperBowl-type” mega-fights between the two organizations’ biggest stars. “Fans will finally get the match-ups they’ve always wanted,” White said. However, soon after the paperwork was signed, he called the company “a mess” and reasoned that the organization was lucky to be in business given its horrible financial state.

Back in October, all of PRIDE’s former employees were laid off, even though they claim that they had been assured their jobs were safe.

The once-mighty PRIDE had been a sports phenomenon in Japan, but chinks started appearing in the armor when the organization lost its television deal with Fuji TV in 2006, thanks to claims that the organization had ties with the Yakuza, Japan’s organized crime group.

PRIDE launched in October 1997 and held a total of 68 shows under the PRIDE and PRIDE Bushido banners. The organization set a still-standing record for an MMA audience when it drew more than 71,000 people to its August 2002 Shockwave/Dynamite show, which was co-promoted by K-1.