It’s now been 15 years since the final Pride 205-pound grand prix. It’s one of those sobering bits of trivia that makes you realize how screwy MMA’s inherent sense of time is, how this sport twists the temporal plane. These kinds of realizations can be helpful, though. Case in point: this Saturday night’s UFC main event is another reminder that 15 years may seem to pass in the blink of an eye, but it’s a damn long time, especially for MMA’s light heavyweight division.
Fifteen years plus a day from when Mauricio ‘Shogun Rua vaulted himself from the sport’s hottest prospect to bona fide MMA royalty in one evening, light heavyweight contenders Aleskandar Rakic and Anthony Smith will square off in Las Vegas.