When it comes to PRIDE and fight fixing you walk on a bit of a tightrope. There were indeed a lot of shady goings-on within the PRIDE organization and there were absolutely fights which were fixed in one way or another, but not all of the fighters were aware of it at the time. It’s simply a part of the fight game at this point that there were some fixed fights in history, although it is hard to really pinpoint which ones were fixed and which ones were legitimate sometimes. Chael Sonnen still wants that fight with Wanderlei Silva and his latest way of provoking it has been talking about Wanderlei’s fights in Japan.
Ouch.
“Wanderlei’s version is, ‘I’d really love to do it, but the UFC just hasn’t offered it to me.’ But anyone who believes the UFC hasn’t offered tried to put on this colossal mega-fight between two guys that genuinely disdain each other is more than silly. It’s a level of ridiculousness,” Sonnen said.
“Am I picking on him? Yeah, I’m picking on him. This dates way back to when he was fighting in Japan. I’m the first guy to ever point out the fact that those were fake, that he wasn’t winning fights in Japan. That he didn’t go 22-0. These were set-up matches, and it pissed him and ‘Cro Cop’ off. But as soon as I said it, other guys started coming out and going, ‘Oh, Chael’s right.’ From Gary Goodridge to Mark Coleman, to Don Frye coming out, ‘Yeah, we were in the back and yeah, these were set-up.’ He’s upset about that, but it doesn’t change the reality of what happened.”