Pride held more than sixty mixed martial arts events, broadcast to about 40 countries worldwide.

[3] The PRIDE ruleset was also more permissive then the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, permitting soccer kicks, stomps and knees to downed opponents, body slams directly in the head ("spiking"), and allowed more fighting outfits, including wrestling shoes and keikogis.

[5] In 2006, DSE started to have financial issues, as a scandal revealing ties between the company and yakuza resulted in the end of multiple lucrative contracts with Japanese broadcasters.

However, such an arrangement did not materialize, and in October 2007, Pride Worldwide's Japanese staff was laid off, marking the end of the organization as an active fight promoter, while the top and most popular fighters were brought to the UFC.

As a result, many of the Pride staff left to form a new organization alongside K-1 parent company Fighting and Entertainment Group.

In the 1970s, Antonio Inoki rose to pronominance in Japan by founding New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and introducing his own style of wrestling he dubbed "Strong-style", derived from training in Karate and Catch-As-Catch-Can, an earlier style of legit Professional wrestling and submission grappling, taught by Karl Gotch.

[10][11] The match against Muhammad Ali, as well the other heterogeneous style bouts inspired a lot of Inoki's students.

[12] The other precursors of Pride were the Japanese mixed martial arts competitions and shoot style pro wrestling promotions Shooto, a self-styled hybrid martial art organization founded in 1985 by former shoot wrestler "Tiger Mask" Satoru Sayama,[13] Pancrase founded in 1993 by wrestlers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki attempting to create a non-scripted shoot wrestling promotion,[14] Vale Tudo Japan, a Vale Tudo tournament organized in 1994 by Satoru Sayama based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Brazilian Vale Tudo[15] and Kingdom, founded in 1997 as a successor to the UWFi.

[16][11] Pride was also influenced by the wild rise of K-1, a kickboxing promotion founded in 1993 which became very popular in Japan for its huge and action-packed tournaments.

[17][18] Pride Fighting Championships was initially conceived of in 1997, to match popular Japanese pro-wrestler Nobuhiko Takada with Rickson Gracie, the purported champion of the Gracie family of Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners, who gained popularity in Japan after winning the 1994 and 1995 Vale Tudo Japan tournaments and brutally defeating UWFi pro wrestler Yoji Anjo in a dojo storm at Rickson's gym in Los Angeles.

[3] The event, held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997, and organised by Hiromichi Momose, Naoto Morishita and Nobuyuki Sakakibara from KRS (Kakutougi Revolutionary Spirits) promotion, attracted 47,000 fans, as well as Japanese mass media attention.

Following the fourth event, the series was taken over by the Dream Stage Entertainment, formed by the members of the dissolved KRS, and it was accordingly renamed as the Pride Fighting Championships, with Morishita as its first chairman.

[2] On January 13, 2003, the Pride MMA production was thrown into turmoil when DSE president Naoto Morishita was found dead hanging by his neck in his hotel room, apparently after his mistress told him she wanted to end their affair.

[20] One of the stories go that Fedor Emelianenko was held at gunpoint to resign with Pride[19] Nobuyuki Sakakibara later assumed the presidency, later joined by Takada as a general manager.

In 2003 Pride introduced the Bushido series of events, which focused mainly, but not exclusively, on the lighter weight classes of lightweights and welterweights.

[21] However, Dana White, speaking on behalf of Zuffa then commented that the announced bout between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva was unlikely to happen because "the Japanese are very hard to do business with".

[22] This statement was likely due to the failure of previous attempts between Zuffa and DSE to organize a fighter exchange agreement.

[24] This left Pride with only SKY PerfecTV, a pay-per-view carrier, as a television outlet in Japan, and the loss of the substantial revenues from the Fuji deal threatened its sustainability.

[25] In late 2006, DSE hinted at plans for Mike Tyson to fight in the organization's New Year's Eve show.

The fight would be broadcast live on large television screens in the Saitama Super Arena, where the regular mixed martial arts bouts were held.

[28] On Tuesday, March 27, 2007, Pride executives Nobuyuki Sakakibara and Nobuhiko Takada announced that Station Casinos Inc. magnate Lorenzo Fertitta, co-owner of Zuffa and its subsidiary MMA production Ultimate Fighting Championship, had made a deal to acquire all assets of Pride Fighting Championships from Dream Stage Entertainment after Pride 34: Kamikaze in a deal reportedly worth USD$65 million,[29][30] though the figure was not publicly disclosed.

Lorenzo Fertitta announced they planned to operate Pride separately from Zuffa's two MMA brands, the UFC and WEC, planned on having occasional crossover shows and matches, pitting fighters from Pride against fighters "from the UFC," using the metaphor of the AFL-NFL merger to compare the situation.

[30] Subsequent remarks by Zuffa spokesperson Dana White however cast doubt as to what the new owners would actually do with Pride.

Pride allowed fighters latitude in their choice of attire, but open finger gloves, a mouthguard and a protective cup were mandatory.

More specifically, the term refers to the principals and moral code that developed among the samurai (military) class of Japan.

Subsequent middleweight, heavyweight and openweight grands prix had taken place across three events when, in 2004, Critical Countdown was introduced for second round bouts.

In 2002, Pride launched The Best, a series of shows featuring up-and-coming fighters, using an eight-sided roped ring.

The titleholders below were those who held the titles on April 8, 2007, the date of the last Pride FC promoted show.