I have nothing but respect for the guys in Pride and also UFC .
Most of the Athletes from Pride are former champion of their respective martial arts . Take for example, The undefeated Fedor Emelienenko was a former World/National Champion in Sambo & Judo, who decided to take up greater challenge in MMA and clinched the heavy championship title. The skills and explosive power demonstrated by some of the great athletes in the league are nothing but real self defense skill . They don't need sophisticated finger attack to crawl your eyes or Dim mak to paralyse your body. All they need is a couple of flurry and some ground skill to floor you down without you even knowing what's going on . For me, they are the master of self defense skill in the modern world for the time and effort that's put forth on the training and the actual competition.
An interesting MMA match of Fedor