VICE TV’s ‘Dark Side of the Cage’ returned on Wednesday night (Feb. 12, 2025) with the first part of a two part series on Japanese MMA promotion PRIDE FC. And while this episode was entitled ‘The Rise of PRIDE,’ there’s definitely some seedy stories covered that would lead to the company’s eventual downfall and sale to UFC.
For the newbs: what was PRIDE? Just the first commercially successful major MMA promotion, booked like a Street Fighter video game and drawing crowds of 20,000 to 90,000 fans. The PRIDE Open Weight Grand Prix is what turned me into a hardcore MMA fan. It was a spectacle and featured larger than life fighters competing on a grand stage. It was also corrupt as hell and controlled by the Yakuza.
PRIDE’s stance on allowing drug use has been well covered, but ‘Dark Side’ went into detail on allegations of fight fixing that dogged the promotion during its early years.
Dark clouds circle over PRIDE, the most popular MMA promotion in the world, when rival Yakuza gangs collide and shadowy secrets come out into the open.
Dark Side of the Cage: The Rise of Pride FC premieres next Wednesday, Feb 12 at 10P ET on VICE TV. pic.twitter.com/YRSesl5atl
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“For the first couple of Prides they had a lot of fake fights,” former UFC and PRIDE fighter Gary Goodrige said. “They had Japan fighting against everybody else, and they wanted you to lose. They used to tell people, ‘I want you to lose this fight.’ And I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.”
One fight pointed to was former UFC champion Mark Coleman’s PRIDE debut against pro wrestler Nobuhiko Takada. Rumor had it that PRIDE paid him to lose to Takada, and the defeat via a questionable ankle lock certainly looks suspicious.
“According to Coleman, he needed the money for his wife’s surgery or something like that,” Japanese fighter manager Shu Hirata said. “So when they offered him extra money to lose the fight, he took it.”
In the early years of PRIDE, things were officially run by president Naoto Morishita, but in the background was Hiromichi Momose, who was Yakuza. When the promotion took off, an Osaka Yakuza group headed by Kim Dok Soo (known at the time as Ishizaka or “Mr. I”) came in and took over — and it all started with the alleged suicide of PRIDE president Morishita.
“He was found dead in a room at the Hotel Hilton,” fighter agent Miro Mijatovic said. “He hung himself. Supposedly he was with his mistress or lover in the room and she disappeared very soon after that. People in the entertainment industry dabble in the gangster world. I know that has all the usual elements of a Yakuza hit.”
“The police just say it’s accident. Kinky S&M stuff, and then by accident, he hung himself.”
A couple of months later there was a coup backstage during PRIDE Final Conflict 2003.
“At that specific event where there was probably, I’d say, between 100 to 200 armed Yakuza guys from two different groups basically looking like they were setting up battle lines and ready to start open warfare,” Mijatovic said in a 2012 interview. “It came pretty close to shots being fired at that specific event. So it was a pretty dangerous scene, behind the scenes.”
“Ishizaka and his group basically had the numbers to take control of PRIDE … Until that event, you’d see Momose sitting at ringside very regularly. Following the November 2003 event, you’ll find that you don’t see him much at all.”
This is just the beginning of the wild stuff that goes on in PRIDE. Next week’s episode is dubbed ‘The Fall of PRIDE’ and we’ll be here to break down some more of the crazy happenings that tanked one of the biggest MMA promotions in the history of the sport.
