I watched a whole day of pride fights with a friend of mine, we just couldn't believe the difference. The way guys transitioned to submissions so quickly, the punches they threw sounded like a baseball bat hitting a piece of meat. They went out there to really fuck eachother up. Maybe it was the high amount of peds that were used I don't know. The ground and pound was way better. Like mentioned about you would see guys picks their shots and get pretty brutal ko's from the top.
Add knees to the fucking head when someone tries and take you down and fails.. Its because of that everyone these days can go for td's All the time, and doesn't Pay for it like you did in pride. If you shot in for a td, gut stuffed to it ended up with your stomach against the mat and the fella over you, you got kneed to the fucking head and that was the end of that fight.
hmm. Maybe "Sprawl" is the correct word for that
edit* yes it was.
This often happends in ufc when someone fails a td =
![](http://fightmash.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mma-fight-sprawl.jpg)
when that happened in pride you were Fucked, other factors also ofc. But that rule change I think made a Lot of difference