Wow, what a great event.

I don't mind this being my worst showing prediction-wise when the fights were this great. It's to be expected anyway, with how tough most of these matchups were.

As an aside, this website will never have spoilers before an event airs, unless the delay is more than 2 days. So that's the official policy.

Crocop looks phenomenal. His head is totally in the game, and while it'll be hard for him to maintain that level of intensity through to the now-inevitable rematch with Fedor, he looked at his absolute best tonight. He's been nipping at the heels of the champions for so long, in K-1 before Pride, it's great to see him finally get the biggest win on the biggest stage, and walk home with a major tournament belt/crown. His boxing looked phenomenal and he proved he can hurt anyone at anytime. He's developed some powerful GNP and seems more comfortable to playing the top game than ever before.

This was a tough loss for Wanderlei, but he shouldn't lose any fans even after taking such a beating. He fought until Crocop MADE him stop. He showed he was a warrior and that Crocop would have lost at any moment until Wanderlei was limp. The fight probably would have been stopped due to Wandy's eye if it hadn't been such a huge fight, but I don't see the decision as being that questionable.

Barnett vs. Nog is going to be ground into dust in the forums as the debate rages on. Nog controlled position and made more sub attempts, but Barnett had a knockdown and a 'catch' (or two, depending on how you score his guillotine/neck crank). Nog's extra weight looked good, and he did a very good job wrestling with Josh and beat him up on the feet.

Josh didn't look great. It looked like he'd focused on mostly grappling in his training, as his always-awkward striking didn't serve him well tonight. This didn't hurt him too badly vs. Nog where he could overcome the disadvantage with his superior weight and power, but Crocop has more power even if he was the smallest man in the tournament at this point.

Arona showed nice aggression in his fight, and continues to demonstrate those brutal low kicks. What is the deal? He's become the Crocop of leg kicks. Rampage was in a wheelchair the day after fighting Arona, and Wanderlei suffered pretty much the same fate twice. Overeem hit him pretty well a couple times, and get again showed that you never know what is going to happen in an Alistair Overeem fight, for the better or worse.

Shogun showed why MMA is not kickboxing, as the snake looked to be very talented and incredibly quick for his length on the feet. As expected, he had no answer for Shogun's ground game, so he's going to be extremely limited unless he can put together a decent wrestling or BJJ game. I would like to see it, as the guy's standup was very exciting. I just hope he can still form complete thoughts after suffering such a brutal curb-stomping. Welcome to Pride, Cyrille.

Sergei showed he's a tough dude, but he threw away what was becoming a blowout victory over Aleksander. Sergei always looks slow and Alek's speed hurt him, but he should have been able to finish the monster. That said, this is one of the most gratuitously late stoppages I've seen, as Sergei was limp for quite a while, and was beaten so badly he forgot how badly he was beaten, arguing the stoppage call. He probably thought he was only dropped by that first punch and then went down. Both fighters looked tough, but their weakneses were also evident here. Sergei is slower than molasses in a Russian winter, and Aleks doesn't have the fighting spirit of his brother and has a tough time with someone who is as hard as he is and can hurt him back.

Cyborg fought the smart fight and Nishijima needs to go train BJJ for about three years before he fights MMA again. This was another horribly late stoppage, as Nishijima looked to go limp as he was tapping, and was certainly out for quite a while while Cyborg continued to choke him.

Nakamura continues to be mediocre, Nakao to disappoint. Hyun is either going to have to bounce back and realize MMA is for real, and train hard and improve like Yoon-Dong Sik, or he can take the same path as Takimoto and leave MMA forever with nothing but embarassment and injuries.

Every one of the GP participants looked sharp and at or near a lifetime best, so Fedor had better be training hard or those “Nobody Beats Me” shirts are going to be on heavy discount by the end of the year.