a spectacular knockout. Arona, outsized for the first time in the promotion, saw Jackson powering out of his holds, so he elected to stay in his guard to minimize damage. He seemed to knock out Jackson with an upkick, but as it wasn't so, he followed with a triangle choke, only for Jackson to suddenly lift him up and counter it with a powerbomb. The slam knocked Arona out and led the referee to stop the match, declaring Jackson the winner. After the bout, Arona protested and claimed that an illegal headbutt he received by Jackson at the end of the slam was what knocked him out; footage of the fight seems to support this, but it was never officially acknowledged or investigated. Four months later, Arona returned to PRIDE and won a fight against sambo champion Sergey Ignatov. On 23 April 2005, Arona entered PRIDE's Middleweight (205 lbs) Grand Prix. He won his first fight in the tournament against Dean Lister by unanimous decision, controlling the ADCC contender in a slow grappling contest. In the second round of the Grand Prix, Arona won, in controversial fashion, his fight against the Japanese fighter Kazushi Sakuraba via corner stoppage. Although Sakuraba put Arona on his back and seemed to put to work his signature jumping stomps, Arona soon overwhelmed him, landing a series of brutal knees to the head, as well as hard soccer kicks to the face. The Brazilian's toenail accidentally slashed open the skin over Sakuraba's left eye, which the Brazilian capitalized on squeezing the cut and digging his finger into it in order to force the stoppage. The Japanese tried to keep on, but Arona hit another flurry of knees to the head, and ended the fight landing soccer kick after soccer kick. He was declared the winner when Sakuraba's corner called a stop to the fight at the conclusion of the second round due to the amount of damage he had sustained. His semifinal match, against rival Wanderlei Silva, was held on 28 August 2005. Arona surprised everyone when he defeated Silva, who was the PRIDE Middleweight Champion at the time, by decision, handing Silva his first middle weight defeat in PRIDE. Despite Silva's feared striking, Arona put him down with an early leg kick and worked on an extensive ground and pound, taking him down every time the fight got standing in order to continue with