Pride at the time was better than UFC (1997-2007)
Cro Cop, Noguiera and Fedor lost against higher caliber fighters once they moved to Strikeforce/UFC/Bellator. Pride was oligopolised by Fedor, Noguiera and Cro Cop. Those 3 were unbeatable until Pride disbanded. Wanderlei Silva also had a 4 year unbeaten run until Mark Hunt’s brick fists destroyed his chin.
Brock Lesnar (heavyweight), Randy Couture (heavyweight/light heavyweight) and Chuck Liddell (light heavyweight) were dominating UFC when these Pride guys came in 2007.
UFC and Strikeforce had better fighters starting from 2005/2006- a year before the end of Pride’s lifetime. This is why the Pride guys lost; they can’t all have suddenly dropped out of their prime as they were only 30 years old when Pride disbanded.
Since 2011 UFC has been in its Golden era:
Stipe Miocic/Fabricio Werdum/Cain Velasquez/Junior Dos Santos- unpredictable heavyweight division
Jon Jones/Daniel Cormier/Alexander Gustafsson/ Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson- everyone of these guys can beat one another- we saw that with Gustafsson losing by split/majority decision to Jones and DC and Rumble brutally knocking out Gustafsson
Whittaker/Romero/Weidman/Rockhold/Bisping- ever since Anderson Silva’s dethroning there’s been a vacuum as to who the best Middleweight is.
Cyborg/Amanda Nunes/ Germaine/ Shevchenko/ Holly Holm- unpredictable women’s division since Ronda’s dethroning
By 2020 all of the divisions will have new champions. New fighters are coming in and working their way up and this golden decade will cease to be.