Eight of the sixteen participants have been announced for PRIDE FIGHTING’S 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix … TOTAL ELIMINATION 2005. Included is defending Grand Prix Champion (2003) Wanderlei Silva, the Brazilian Top Team’s Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Grand Prix Finalist (2000) Igor Vovchanchyn, Japanese hero Kazushi Sakuraba, Chute Boxe’s rising star Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Pancrase star Yuki Kondo, Grand Prix Semi-Finalist (2003) Hidehiko Yoshida, and Yoshida protégé Kazuhiro Nakamura.

Wanderlei Silva (Brazil) Kazushi Sakuraba (Japan) “Shogun” Rua (Brazil) Yuki Kondo (Japan)

Rogerio Nogueira (Brazil) K. Nakamura (Japan) I. Vovchanchyn (Ukraine) Hidehiko Yoshida (Japan)

Additional tournament participants will be announced soon.

PRIDE FIGHTING’S 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix Tournament will span three events … TOTAL ELIMINATION (opening round), CRITICAL COUNTDOWN (Second Round) and FINAL CONFLICT (Semi-Finals and Finals). Dates for the latter two events will be announced soon.

TOTAL ELIMINATION 2005 takes place on April 23rd, 2005 from the Osaka Dome in Japan and premieres on North American pay per view via iNDEMAND, DIRECTV, DISH NETWORK, UrbanXtra, TVN1, VU!, and Viewer’s Choice Canada on April 23rd at 10:00pm EST, 7:00pm PST (including a countdown show at 9:30pm EST, 6:30pm PST). For additional replay times, please contact your pay per view provider or pridefc.com.

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