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Even though the UFC and PRIDE FC have hosted well over 100 events combined, very few can be called blockbusters, and more often they’re labeled busts. The blockbuster, however rare, has the potential to revitalize an organization for months, and for these purposes, a blockbuster is defined as an event with a strong card and an even stronger night of fights. Although we’ll have to wait to see what kind of night UFC 79 proves to be, it certainly meets the first criteria. So, which cards in MMA history have given fans a great card as well as great fights? MMA Madness looks for the answer with its top 5 blockbuster events ever.

#5: PRIDE Final Conflict 2005

The card: Featured the middleweight tournament semis (and later that night, the finals). The final four in the tournament were Ricardo Arona, Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio Rua, and Alistair Overeem. Silva and Rua are the two most accomplished middleweights in PRIDE history while Arona and Overeem aren’t slouches either. The pairings of Arona with Silva and Overeem with Rua were significant due to the widely known preference of the two Chute Boxe legends (Silva and Rua) to not fight one another.

Additionally, the card featured a heavyweight title fight between then-champion Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Filipovic. While Fedor was expected to retain the title, Filipovic provided the greatest challenge Fedor had ever faced. Filipovic was undefeated in over a year and had torn through such big names as Josh Barnett and Kevin Randleman. To add even more fuel to the fire, Cro Cop had knocked out Fedor’s little brother, Aleksander, with a ferocious kick to the head one year prior to the event.

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