Sherdog’s Top 10: MMA Rivalries

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5. Chute Boxe-Brazilian Top Team

The Rundown: In more prosperous times, a Pride Fighting Championships card very nearly doubled as a showcase for members of the well-respected Chute Boxe and Brazilian Top Team camps. Led by Rudimar Fedrigo, as well as Jose Landi-Jons and, later, Rafael Cordeiro, Chute Boxe was known for its aggressive style and spawned fighters such as Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio Rua and Anderson Silva.

Headed by Bebeo Duarte, Murilo Bustamante and Mario Sperry, Brazilian Top Team made a worthy foil, as the Nogueira Brothers, Ricardo Arona and Vitor Belfort were some prominent names who called the camp home. With both teams possessing such talent-laden rosters, their battle for supremacy took place all over the globe, including Japan, Brazil, Portugal and the United States.

Perhaps no event highlighted the rivalry better than Pride’s “Final Conflict 2005,” which featured a middleweight tournament composed of some of the sport’s top stars. In the semifinals, Arona defeated Wanderlei Silva, who was arguably Chute Boxe’s signature fighter at the time and previously unbeaten in Pride's middleweight division.

“We had a feud in the beginning, but our differences created Pride’s history,” Arona would tell Sherdog.com last October. “It all started with us.”

Rua, perhaps the hottest prospect in the sport at that time, avenged his Chute Boxe teammate by knocking out “The Brazilian Tiger” in less than three minutes in the championship match, with a head stomp and hammerfists rendering Arona unconscious. The win capped off an amazing run in which Rua defeated Quinton Jackson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem and Arona in the same year.

Today, the rosters of the respective teams are not nearly as stacked as they once were, as many of both gyms’ most prominent fighters have sought training elsewhere over the years. Nights like the one back in August 2005, when Rua officially propelled himself to stardom, help make the rivalry resonate today.

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