Issue 042

October 2008

Western MMA fans can find plenty of coverage of their favourite sport online. The Internet has proven to be a powerful communications tool for promotions such as UFC and EliteXC. Because so many Westerners rely on the Internet for their daily news fix, it’s impossible to imagine what coverage for MMA would be like in today’s world without an Internet connection.

In the world of Japanese MMA the Internet remains a secondary means of communication for news and opinions. There are monthly magazines (such as Gong Kakutougi, Kamipro and others) that cover the MMA scene on a full-time basis. Daily sports newspapers throughout the country cover MMA in the same manner as boxing or baseball. The free-to-air major TV networks in Japan treat MMA as any other major sport. The top Japanese MMA stars are celebrities throughout the country and can command high salaries just for making appearances on television. Top stars like Kid Yamamoto come close to the same level as Hidetoshi Nakata (a famous soccer star) or Asashoryu (star of sumo) in terms of ratings.

On the flip-side, scandal magazines like Shukan Gendai also cover MMA, but from a very different slant. It was Gendai that went on a multi-month negative campaign against Pride and it’s promoter, Dream Stage Entertainment, alleging ties to organised crime. What the police seemingly couldn’t do in finishing off Pride, Shukan Gendai happily did and made a lot of money in the process.  

The relationship between the Japanese media and MMA business is very symbiotic. There are a lot of politics involved in how the Japanese media covers events, based on who is drawing the most money and who is currying political favours at the time. While some members of the Japanese media have an independent streak in them, for the most part writers and editors are simply bought-and-paid for in terms of media access and what to tell readers is good or bad. That’s just how business works in Japan.

For all of the positive coverage that a fighter can benefit from in the Japanese media, those same media players can quickly turn on a dime if they suspect that they can profit from a scandal involving your name. Norifumi ‘Kid’ Yamamoto, the K-1 and now DREAM star, found out the hard way that having high-profile name value can jumpstart a series of scandal stories.  

In July Gendai linked Yamamoto to a story about famous celebrities allegedly involved in ‘marijuana parties’. Throughout the six-page story, Gendai claimed that Yamamoto hung out with other Japanese celebrities, listened to loud reggae music and caused a commotion in a Tokyo neighbourhood. Yamamoto was never arrested nor linked by police in regard to his supposed involvement in marijuana parties. Nonetheless, his name was tarnished (marijuana carries heavy social stigma and legal penalties in Japan). 

Shukan Gendai used Kid Yamamoto’s name to pump up what has turned into a series of stories about other Japanese celebrities also allegedly involved in marijuana parties. It was the power of his name as a MMA star that helped sell a story that readers otherwise wouldn’t have cared about. Call it sensationalism, but the fact is that it sells big. Gendai has long cast itself in the role of being a crusader for the everyday man, going after the big people and bringing them down to size - or pumping them up if need be.  

Given the media structure that currently exists in Japan, there is great hesitancy on the part of fighters and promoters to attack this media hierarchy that currently exists. When Gendai went on the war path against Pride in 2006, there was a lot of complaining in the Japanese fight industry that police officials were supposedly leaking information to Gendai as opposed to going after them in a criminal investigation. The theory was simple: if you can’t get the bad guys through the legal process, you can get them through the media and eventually take them down. Mission accomplished.

What makes the involvement of Gendai so dangerous for the Japanese MMA scene is that they are not afraid to attack anyone. We know that the Japanese fight scene has long had a history of involvement with the Yakuza (mafia), but the question has always been whether or not anyone would take on the bad guys and stick with such a media strategy. As Gendai proved with their campaign against Pride, they went after the ‘bad guys’ and made a lot of money doing so.  

What does this ultimately mean for the Japanese fight scene? A little transparency concerning some of the bad guys in the industry is not a bad thing. However, if you live by the sword you also die by the sword. You can buy off as many media writers as you want, but you can’t buy all of them off in today’s environment. Anyone with a cell phone camera and Internet access can be their own blogger - the old theories and methods of controlling the Japanese media are being thrown out the window.  

The question is whether or not those in the Japanese fight scene can figure out how to handle the new media environment and bend the new rules that are currently being established by ‘outlaw’ media sources.

Zach Arnold is the editor of popular website www.fightopinion.com