Here is the understatement of the decade: We waited just a little while for PRIDE to trek across the Pacific to set up shop in the United States.

Finally, after what seemed like eons, Japan's hottest export this side of the PS3 and hentai finally landed safely on these shores. Now, after all was said and done, the mixed martial arts word is wondering if PRIDE's debut in the West will be as impactful as the Japanese giant and MMA fans expected.

While the answer to that certainly can't be unearthed right away, the wait, at first glance, was definitely worth it.

The Thomas & Mack Center is the largest indoor venue in Las Vegas, a few thousand seats more at capacity than both the MGM Grand Garden Arena and Mandalay Bay Events Center. A complete sellout was something I didn't personally expect, but when the "main" card kicked in seeing easily more than a thousand empty seats was somewhat disappointing.

With PRIDE routinely drawing rabid crowds of over 35,000 in Japan, the official paid attendance was just 10,527 here in Las Vegas; it might be disheartening for the organization, especially when the arena was scaled down to fit roughly 15,000.

A few factors may have played a role in the event not drawing a full house on Saturday and after looking at the facts and figures, everything actually makes sense.

(That alone probably won't curtail PRIDE's quest of dominating the American MMA scene. However if their scheduled mega card on February 24 is a total flop, the fight club's plans may be drastically altered. After hearing about the rumored fighters on that card (Wanderlei, Cro Cop, Fedor, Nog, Yoshida, Gomi, etc), the T&M should be packed to the gills with PRIDE Las Vegas tickets selling on EBay for upwards of $9,000 … sarcasm, guys.)

For starters, the UFC held an event a week prior at the Mandalay Bay. Most — try about 95 percent — casual MMA fans know only about Zuffa's product. When these stray cats hear about something new, they typically discard the product as something less.

Two shows in one week means the more known commodity is scooped up. It’s simple. So, if TUF Guy Gary — the trendy dude with the shaved head, Orange Country Choppers shirt, barbed wire and/or cheesy tribal tattoo — actually has heard of both shows, he'll usually choose what is more safe and popular. In this case, that choice is the logical Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Another factor tossed into the cauldron centers on the card lacking a super fight, a battle that makes even the most jaded and hard-to-please fans froth with anticipation. Despite the fact that the world's greatest fighter (probably the greatest fighter ever) headlined the card, people want to see elite fighters fight elite fighters … or at least popular fighters locking horns with fellow popular fighters.

In the case of PRIDE “Real Deal” there wasn’t a marquee match-up to coincide with Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures)’s U.S. debut. Sorry, “Phenom” Phanboy, the Vitor Belfort (Pictures)-Dan Henderson (Pictures) tussle was nothing of the sort.

And finally, the most important equation that was solved on the on the trusty, rusty old abacus is the simple fact that hardly anybody knows what PRIDE is.

As many people know by now, my full-time job is as a FedEx delivery driver and I drop packages off to a surprising amount of fight fans on my route. The actual figure is hard to determine, but there are literally dozens of fight fans I talk to on a daily basis, most of them younger guys who love Chuck Liddell (Pictures) and the UFC. Only two actually knew about PRIDE. Whenever I talked about Japan's largest MMA organization, quite a few of them used to think I was joking about another sort of “pride.” Finally, I was able to convince these people about PRIDE, what it is, who the fighters are, etc. Yet they shrug it off as some wacky Japanese nonsense.

Dream Stage Entertainment, PRIDE’s parent company, did a tremendous job of trying to hype this card, and thus their product, with crucial radio commercials that aired on various local sports radio stations, including an ESPN Radio affiliate.

Ads were placed in newspapers and local sports magazines. Odds were placed in all the major casino sports books. A few scattered billboards were erected. And the fighters on the card made themselves more available for interviews with the various Web sites than they usually do.

This sort of marketing is absolutely crucial when trying to educate the masses about an unknown commodity, especially one from another country that sports a totally different culture than our own.

Naturally, Captain Obvious would say that any company wanting the public to buy or sample their product would do this, especially if said company has the coin PRIDE is fortunate enough to possess. But I've covered the fight game long enough and I have witnessed dozens upon dozens of up-and-coming, run-of-the-mill and insert-your-own-hyphenated-cliché-known-to-man types of fight promoters deliver their "goods" to the public.

Empty arenas and ballrooms scattered the bogus fight show wasteland and forced many of these “legit” shows to go belly up. Many of these promoters expect Vegas cards to always turn into major successes, but when their show is nothing more than a soggy Silver Salute on the Fourth of July, that is to be expected.

Revolution Fighting Championship. Shooto's lone Vegas appearance. World Combat league. Countless greasy boxing goons. They all immediately pop into my head when I think of fistic failures in fabulous Fight Town.

PRIDE did a little more pre-event marketing than the rest of wannabes and 10,572 fans did pay for a seat. A reason for this could be that PRIDE is more popular in American than many think and, more importantly, mixed martial arts is much, much bigger than imagined.

Going back to just my route alone, most people I chat with want to talk fights and, like I said, the UFC. These same people know I love football, baseball, hockey, etc., but they only care about one dude whipping the ass of another.

Nobody but me cares about hockey. Baseball is too boring. And basketball, in the eyes of many, is filled with nothing but thugs. The NFL and college football remain unbeatable, and the same can somehow be said about NASCAR, hands down the most viewer unfriendly "sport" on the planet save soccer and the WNBA.