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Pride 14 

Chuck Liddell vs Guy Mezger

Chuck Liddell was currently fighting for the UFC and stepped into the PrideFC ring to fight Guy Mezger.

Guy Mezger is a great kickboxer who I think was the old school Luke Rockhold. Both great kickboxers with great grappling as well.

Guy Mezger has fought pretty regularly in the Pride ring and recently was on a four fight win streak.

Chuck Liddell was training partners with Tito Ortiz at this point. I can’t say for certain but this appears to be the era of when Tito Ortiz was light heavyweight champ of the UFC.

PrideFC was beginning to look like the premier organization at this time with a lot of the best fighters wanting to fight for Pride. The UFC was a rival of Pride and to put one of their top prospects (Chuck Liddell) to fight in other organizations was a risk. 

I love to see the cross promotion between organizations to put champions versus champions to see who really is the best. Rizin vs Bellator MMA comes to mind as the most recent crossover event.

For an MMA purist, this is a dream come true. I would love to see these guys fight anyone in any promotion. Crossover if they have to, that would be ideal. 

You can now think of Francis Ngannou vs Jon Jones. Francis now fights for the PFL and Jones the UFC. It would be cool if they did a promotion versus promotion fight but I think we all know that’s not going to happen.

There’s something truly exciting about cross promotion fights and I got all giddy thinking about Guy Mezger vs Chuck Liddel fighting in Pride. Recently I’ve been going through watching the old Pride fight cards on UFC Fight pass. The Pride/UFC era was my favorite time to watch fighting next to watching people I actually got to know at my gym, fighting in premiere organizations. 

I’ve been able to watch John Salter fight in Strikeforce, Bellator and the UFC. Joe Solecki fights in the CFFC, Dana White’s Contender Series and the UFC. Jamie Pickett in DW’s Contender Series and the UFC. David Wilson in Street Beefs and working his way up the pro mma circuit. Juan is making his way up the amateur circuit. A lot of pro and amateur fighters from everywhere make their trip to Salty Dog Jiu Jitsu. Then you add in all the high level jiu jitsu and wrestling athletes that come in as well to enhance the value of the gym. I’m spoiled to be able to train with these athletes so it’s hard to say UFC/Pride era was my favorite era to watch, because I’m currently living in my favorite era. 

But it definitely was a great time to watch fighting and reminisce on those days. I wonder to myself, how nervous the UFC was to enter one of their fighters into the Pride ring. At the time Chuck Liddell was a killer and I’m sure easy to have faith in him, but this is MMA where anything can happen. 

Mezger put it on Chuck in round 1 and Mezger dropped Chuck in the 1st round. Mezger looked to be the better kickboxer mixing up his combinations.

Round 2…

Chuck Liddell comes out with a fury of punches and it looks that Mezger might be able to weather the storm but Chuck lands one last straight right and knocks Mezger out unconscious. It looked like Chuck may have been out-pointed in that first round but to come out and finish the fight in the second is probably an igniting part of his career. 

What a fight. What a statement by the UFC to bring one of their fighters on another organization’s fight card. I wish we saw more of this now but understand why it doesn’t happen. 

What a time to watch fighting. So many legends like Wanderlie, Rampage, Hendo, Sakuraba, Coleman, Gracie’s, and many more were at these early Pride events (Pride 1-14) and it was nice to find this random gem. 

If I had enough time, I would try to watch the Pride and UFC events in chronological order to experience one of my favorite MMA eras.