Customer Reviews

Pride Fighting Championships: Shockwave 2005

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This event featured enough big name fights to even excite a casual Pride fan. If you like stand-up fighting, Cro-Cop vs. Hunt is a display of two of the best in all of MMA. If you want to see the best fighter in MMA destroy somebody, watch Fedor vs. Zuluzinho. Three championship bouts take place in the lower weight divisions, Henderson vs. Bustamante, Gomi vs. Sakurai, and Arona vs. Wanderlei. Round this out with two all Japanese rockstar battles in Minowa vs. Sakuraba and Ogawa vs. Yoshida and the freak show between Giant Silva vs. Thompson and the ever entertaining Charles Bennett and this DVD is a can't miss.

Pride does it right. Shockwave 2005, while not as outstanding as the previous Shockwave, still packs plenty of punch. The card begins with Charles Bennett winning by submission and then tackling the Ref (and getting a yellow card). The highlights are the rematch between Dan Henderson and Murilo Bustamonte. Murilo certainly does better this time than he did at Final Conflict 2003, but Dan gets the nod and the belt.Good fight.
The monsterous Mark Hunt returns to the Pride ring, where he walks down, outslugs and generally PWNS his nemesis Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic. I did not know a human being could really take the kind of punishment Hunt absorbs!!
Gomi and Sakurai are arguably two of the best lightweights in the world. They really show you why. More mayhem from the Fireball Kid.
The main event, is according to some, a letdown. I disagree.I consider the Wanderlei Silva-Ricardo Arona match to be one of the most compelling matches ever. It was certainly a grudge match, it wasclose,back and forth,and the decision was controversial. I seem to be in the minority of people who think the champ did enough to win.
Some problems in the audio production (you actually here a repeat of color commentary for round two during round three of an undercard fight) but its nothing serious.
If I had a choice between this one and Shockwave 2004, I'd go with 2004. But this one is surely worth the money.

unfortunately that was then and now UFC owns PRIDE and i think it may all be down hill from here. not taking anything away from ZUFFA but there are huge differences in the american market vs the japanese market. i was hoping for a unification of the two companies, not a monopoly. we'll have to see what happens, but there have been no UFC events that can come close to PRIDE events. FEDOR vs NOGIERA was an unreal match and i doubt that any of the UFC heavyweights could have been EITHER of the combatants in this fight, not one of them could have withstood the barrage of Mr. Emeilianenko and certainly none of them could be as resiliant as minotauro...this disc is worth it for that fight alone. but there are plenty more on the disc to choose from. i salute Mr. Sakikabara and Mr. Takada for doing this for the fans. we can thank them for the body of work that they were able to amass in their 10 years.

I love watching Pride events. It's a shame UFC has taken them over and not bothered to schedule any traditional Pride bouts in Japan. :(

"Pride FC: Shockwave 2005" is another outstaning end of year show. The highlight of this video is the Hunt/CroCop fight, an absolute slugfest. Vanderlai, Taka Gomi, and others round out a tremendous card.

If you are starting your collection, or are just familiar with the UFC, this is a definitive Pride DVD...

Which makes it a 5 star DVD no matter what. Mach is a great fighter, but Takanori is IT. The fights are all interesting, even Fedor v Zuluhino (the mismatch of all-time) and Charles Bennett v Ken Kaneko (Crazy Horse v a TV actor).

Complaints: The opening ceremony is not shown in full (a no-no for Pride DVDs), the entrance to Minowa v Sakuraba isn't shown (and may be the very best dualing entrances ever) and the main event is moved to the middle of the dvd (Yoshida v Ogawa). I can't imagine that Pride's Japanese honchos viewed this before it came out.

All-in-all, a great DVD with some gaping problems.