Issue 023

March 2007

By Andrew Garvey.

MMA is still very, very popular in Japan, even if the heady days of 2002-2004 and the real boom (gigantic TV ratings, massive mainstream stars and colossal crowds) are now a distant memory.  2006 was a year of huge MMA stories in Japan, with a major scandal potentially crippling the seemingly entrenched and dominant PRIDE FC, fans are set for a truly fascinating 2007.

PRIDE FC

By far the biggest Japanese story of the year was the Yakuza scandal that cost PRIDE their lucrative contract with the Fuji TV network. Fuji paid a hefty chunk of PRIDE’s production costs, giving them the financial muscle and mainstream exposure to be the nation’s unquestioned leader in MMA. Without them, 2007 will be a year of real uncertainty, no matter how upbeat parent company DSE have been sounding. Changes have already been made with PRIDE’s overseas debut in Las Vegas in October and the cancellation of the Bushido series (the lighter fighters absorbed into the main shows). Despite some excellent shows, Bushido wasn’t selling enough tickets to justify promotional expenses without TV coverage.  

In the ring, there have been some great fights though, with Josh Barnett and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s technical master class in September, Mark Hunt’s gripping annihilation of the stubborn Yosuke Nishijima in February and the UFC-bound Mirko Cro Cop’s unstoppable 4-fight march to victory in the Open Weight Grand Prix all standing out.

Still, the most important happenings were outside the ring and with an ambitious schedule for this year including 4 trips to the US (3 in Las Vegas, 1 in Los Angeles) this is a crucial and challenging year for them. They certainly haven’t run out of ideas, touting a super heavyweight division and a lightweight Grand Prix. The re-signing of heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko is obviously a major boost but they still need more. The bottom line is, to sustain their business, maintain their popularity and keep their biggest names, PRIDE need a new domestic TV deal. Sadly, under the ownership of DSE at least, that does not look like happening anytime soon.

K-1 Hero’s

Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba’s shocking summertime defection from PRIDE to Hero’s and his hospitalisation for a wrestling/fighting related brain trauma in September were huge stories, as were the uncomfortable beatings handed to him by Kestutis Smirnovas and emerging superstar Yoshihiro Akiyama. Hopefully we’ll never see this particular legend in the ring again. 2006 also saw Hero’s superstar Norifumi ‘Kid’ Yamamoto’s brief retirement from the sport to try out for the 2008 Olympics in Freestyle wrestling, though he returned for one night on New Year’s Eve. The same night Genki Sudo announced his own retirement from fighting due to injury. The eccentric ‘Neo Samurai’ will be sadly missed.  

K-1’s policy of booking freakshow fights featuring middle-aged giants, Hawaiian Sumo legends, actors, comedians and shot-putters continued. Expect more of the same maddening mixture of high quality action and head-scratching nonsense in ‘07.  

Elsewhere in Japan

Shooto ran their usual quota of evenly matched, high quality shows, mostly in front of small, hardcore crowds. They lost some major talent to the much bigger PRIDE (most notably rising stars Shinya Aoki and Mitsuhiro Ishida) but remained a fertile breeding ground for new, exciting talent and one of the sport’s most stable promotions.  It was business as usual for Pancrase, treading water and not really making much of an impact these days. Without any major shows and a heavyweight title tournament ignored by almost everyone, they ran in smaller buildings. Greatest Common Multiple’s DOG remained the only cage-based MMA promotion in Japan and linked up with partners across the world to exchange talent as the rebranded Cage Force. ZST put on some well received shows but may need to reconsider their policy of having no judges as their big November event saw a whopping five out of six fights all end in draws.

Look for all of these smaller promotions to basically carry on the way they have done for the last several years. Hardcore followings, low costs and some exposure on cable channel Samurai TV they’re probably as stable, though some might say stale, as any MMA promotions in the world.