If you were in charge of a 16-man invitation only $2 million tournament, who would you call up?

Let's say you were in a position to create a 16-man tournament with a $2-million winner take all grand prize.

That doesn't mean no show money for anyone else. Let's say everyone got paid to show (say $100k), and also got plenty of money for advancing each round, with the grand prize going to the winner.

In other words, just figure that this is a tournament with the sort of prize money that few fighters would turn down, if they got the call.

Now here is the main condition. Your object is to get fighters who will put on spectacular fights. Hence, the invitation only aspect of it. Just assume no contractual hang ups and that fighters are free to come if they get the call; and that the money is most likely well worth their while, so you don't need to worry about fighters turning you down.

Rules are Pride rules, or something similar. That doesn't mean they have to be just like Pride, but Pride was the pinnacle when it came to rule sets, in terms of what has existed.

So, here are the main things. There are no weight classes. The 16 fighters you call up all have to compete against each other.

However, that isn't to say you have no leeway. If you want to focus on fighters from say featherweight to welterweight, that's entirely up to you. If you want to have mostly welterweights and middleweights, with a few LHWs, and perhaps even a heavyweight who you think is very limited in terms of skill, and may indeed lose to a much lighter guy, but who is a very entertaining fighter who will add to the tournament, that is fine.

If you just want to go true openweight style, that is entirely fine.

In short, what 16 fighters would you call to give you the most entertaining tournament, based on their fighting styles, fighting temperament, etc. etc. etc.

Think Bloodsport mixed with Pride Grand Prix.

Current fighters only.

HW Grand Prix with following fighters

Konstantin Erokhin
Tyrone Spong
Minakov
Rampage
Grabowski
Thiago Silva
Volkov
Aleks Emelianenko
Tybura
Cro Cop
Kharitonov
Emanuel Newton
Ivanov
King Mo
Gluhov
Bedorf

155 & down grand prix

Jose Aldo
Anthony pettis
Pitbull freire
Demetrius Johnson
Cowboy cerrone
Eddie Alvarez
Pat curran
Shinya aoki
Bibiano Fernandes
Gilbert Melendez
John Dodson
Ali bagautinov
Alexander koreshkov
Eduardo dantas
Josuph benavidez
Nate diaz

Openweight gp

Overeem
Konstantin erokhin
Rumble Johnson
Liam mcgeary
Damian grabowski
Chaban ka
Derrick mehmen
Alexander gustafsson
Daniel cormier
Cain velasquez
Jon Jones
Stephan puetz
Luis Fernando Miranda
Thiago Silva
Marcin tybura
Travis Browne
Jds
Rampage

Golden Age wrote:HW Grand Prix with following fighters

Konstantin Erokhin
Tyrone Spong
Minakov
Rampage
Grabowski
Thiago Silva
Volkov
Aleks Emelianenko
Tybura
Cro Cop
Kharitonov
Emanuel Newton
Ivanov
King Mo
Gluhov
Bedorf

Going with this

Middleweight Gp

MAMED KHALIDOV
ALEXANDER SHLEMENKO
PAUL DALEY
DAN HENDERSON
RAMAZAN EMEEV
VITOR BELFORT
MELVIN MANHOEF
BEN ASKREN
WANDERLEI SILVA
DOUG MARSHALL
QUINTON JACKSON
VYACHESLAV VASILEVSKY
LYOTO MACHIDA
MICHAL MATERLA
YUSHIN OKAMI
MAIQUEL FALCAO

Kingfedor wrote:Middleweight Gp

MAMED KHALIDOV
ALEXANDER SHLEMENKO
PAUL DALEY
DAN HENDERSON
RAMAZAN EMEEV
VITOR BELFORT
MELVIN MANHOEF
BEN ASKREN
WANDERLEI SILVA
DOUG MARSHALL
QUINTON JACKSON
VYACHESLAV VASILEVSKY
LYOTO MACHIDA
MICHAL MATERLA
YUSHIN OKAMI
MAIQUEL FALCAO

Would be unreal to see that tournament.

1st round:


Rampage vs. Satoshi Ishii

Mariusz Pudzianowski vs. Will Brooks

Douglas Lima vs. Tim Sylvia

Alexander Shlemenko vs. Demetrious Johnson

Robbie Lawler vs. Bobby Lashley

Minakov vs. Nick Diaz

Cro Cop vs. Thiago Silva

Emanual Newton vs. Jimmy "The Titan" Ambriz

I would pay good money to see Pudzilla vs Dana with PRIDE rules.

Satoshi Ishii
Tyrone Spong
Daniel Cormier
Semmy Schilt
Josh Barnett
Mark Hunt
Jon Jones
Rampage Jackson
Liam McGeary
Cain Velasquez
Brock Lesnar
Konstantin Erokhin
Blagoi Ivanov
Melvin Manhoef
Gokhan Saki
Vitaly Minakov

Golden Age wrote:I would pay good money to see Pudzilla vs Dana with PRIDE rules.

I'd buy that as a $60 PPV