Q: Jerry Millen was certainly much-maligned in the months leading up to the sale of Pride. Two other names that have received criticism, and you've referred to them vaguely at times in this interview, were Hideki Yamamoto and Yukino Kanda. Do you feel the criticism that has been levied against them is fair?

TA: Ah (hesitates)... yeah, in a lot of ways I do. It's not a personal thing. I don't have anything against them personally. I worked with them for years. But to be honest I never quite understood why they were in MMA. I just never understood it. They did not have a passion for it. A lot of guys get into MMA because they are passionate about it and it drives the business. I live and breath MMA. Any successful promoter out there does. Look at Terry Trebilcock, Scott Coker, T.J. Thompson, even Dana (White). We all have a sickness to put in the hours we put in. It's because we love it.

Q: Last year at this time there were a lot of rumors about Pride's future and those rumors lasted up until the announcement was made on March 27. What was Pride's management telling its employees while all the rumors of its demise were circulating?

TA: Internally we were told that we didn't have anything to worry about and that decisions were going to be made that would guarantee Pride's existence as what we believed the top brand in MMA. And I truly believe that during Pride's existence it was the best brand in the world. But things didn't turn out the way anybody wanted them to. What we were told was that "You don't have to worry about the UFC. The UFC is not going to buy Pride."

But what ended up happening was that the Fertittas (the majority owners of the UFC) bought Pride and that was the distinction. And the original plan was that the Fertittas were going to own Pride and it was going to be run as a separate entity (and that) none of us on the staff had to worry about our jobs. We were told over and over and over not to worry. But I still worried. And I think that was maybe the original intention -- I'm sure even on the Fertittas side. I know that Lorenzo (Fertitta) is a big Pride fan. He's clearly a Pride fan. I wouldn't doubt that the original intention was to keep Pride intact but clearly that was not what happened.

Sam Caplan: Recent speculation has suggested that Hong Man Choi will be fighting Fedor on the card. Has an opponent for Fedor been determined? If so, can you name that opponent?

Vadim Finkelstein: Hong Man Choi is most likely to be Fedor's opponent for New Year's. There are other candidates, which we are not revealing at this time.

Labels: M-1, MMA, PRIDE, Sam Caplan, Turi Altavilla, Vadim Finkelstein