For those who expect the PRIDE Fighting Championships to return, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that you’ll never see it.

Dana White was quoted as saying that the Japanese don’t want it anymore (50/50 truth, here) and that he would have to invest upwards of $44 million dollars just to get the first year up and running. But that final $44 million doesn’t count poor attendance, lack of a TV deal, or lack of any of the great fighters they once had; it’s just a preliminary number to run the shows with no guarantee that the new PRIDE would even turn a nickel in profit. The PRIDE FC is dead and soon to be buried. It’s a shame, too. If Dana White weren’t still pissed off about “Cro Cop” knocking out Wanderlei Silva and “ruining” a mega fight with Liddell vs. Silva, there may have been hope. And yes, that hair is still across his million-dollar rear end.

Dana White claims that all he MMA world cares about is the UFC World titles. I don’t know about you, but a one promotion sport isn’t really a sport at all. There are 32 different franchises in the NFL, which the UFC is deathly afraid of, as well as at least five different levels of game play. MLB, NBA, NHL, FIFA, NASCAR, IndyCar, F-1, they all have multiple “promotions” within their leagues that represent a rather large number of the worlds players/drivers. The UFC is a North American company that is trying to expand into other parts of the world, but it is ALWAYS a US promotion and will always stay that way. They do everything for the US, just like DSE did almost everything for the Japanese fans (a point that White claims led to it’s downfall). In the end, PRIDE and the UFC will become one in the same. The sport will determine who survives and who eats breakfast at the local soup kitchen. Promoters are blind, for the most part, to curves in the road. No matter how well they think they know their respective sport, or “sport” as the WWE may be.