With MMA in Japan on a hiatus until March, it would be a good idea to look at that week that spelled the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. New Year’s Eve has been occupied by MMA in Japan since 2001 and January 4—pro wrestling’s biggest day in Japan—also featured MMA this year. What the promoters, fans, and fighters on these shows didn’t know was that K-1/DREAM’s Dynamite!! show and World Victory Road’s No Ran both conveyed the same message: how the mighty have fallen.
MMA in Japan has been on the decline since Pride’s departure in 2007 with HERO’s and then DREAM attempting to fill the void and coming the closest of any MMA promotion in Japan to actually filling the void left by Pride. For a startup promotion, DREAM didn’t have the worst year as far as attendance and T.V. ratings were considered, but as Pride Part Two, the promotion didn’t meet expectations and that set the stage for a night that may in fact spell the end of MMA on New Year’s eve in Japan.
Attendance and ratings have been slipping more and more the last few years with the Sakuraba/Funaki headlined NYE show last year doing only 25,000 for the around 50,000-seat Osaka Dome and a 14.7 rating compared to the 19.9 for the 2006 version of the show, which also featured Sakuraba in the main-event. This year was a make or brake year as boxing on NYE has become a better option for TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting Systems) on NYE over the past few years and could in fact be a replacement based on the events that took place December 31.
This year featured the long awaited Sakuraba/Tamura showdown along with the most matches on a NYE card ever; a card with just about every big name K-1 could get for the show. On paper, the card looked good and it gave MMA insiders and hardcore MMA fans more than their fill of big names and interesting fights, but in the end it didn’t matter. Instead of the Osaka Dome, the event was held at the Saitama Super Arena, and only at the 19,000-seat setting. Even with that they would only do 18,000 with 10,000 paid. T.V. would be no better as the show only pulled in a 12.9 rating and was barely in the top five for the night. In short, it was a strong plummet if there ever was one.
This plummet was a shock to me, but was one that also had a feeling of “I saw this coming” attached as without Yamamoto and Masato, they didn’t have the two ratings grabbers that may have given this show enough of a boost to not be a complete disappointment. But they did have Sakuraba/Tamura, Cro Cop/Hong Man-Choi, Badr Hari in a kickboxing fight, Musashi in a kickboxing fight, and Bob Sapp facing an amateur wrestler dressed up as an amime character. And while Sapp’s fight was the biggest ratings grabber for the show due to his freak show power—something that’s needed on NYE—and the cultural significance of an anime character being in an MMA fight or entering pro wrestling, everything else was hampered by the fact that they all carried too much baggage for people to care enough.
I am glad that Sakuraba/Tamura happened just for the fact that history will like that this one took place. I saw it as the final curtain closing for UWFi as most of the Sakuraba/Tamura back story takes place there with newbie Sakuraba being tortured by veteran Tamura. However, this one happened five years too late as an ’03 fight between these two would’ve been Tokyo Dome worthy and a big ratings grabber, but with Tamura’s on and off MMA career and Sakuraba continuing to take beatings in fights, it just didn’t have the same luster.
As for Cro Cop/Choi, last year’s NYE would’ve been a better time for this one to happen; obviously that would’ve been impossible due to Cro Cop’s UFC contract, but the point is that 2008 wasn’t friendly to either. Choi’s turbulent year included a suicide controversy ala Terrell Owens, an operation eliminating a lot of his bulk as well as his killer instinct, and decreased in-ring performance stemming from the operation. As for Cro Cop, 2008 was an example of why he should retire as a poor performance against Overeem compiled with injuries and called off fights/grappling matches against Kharitonov and Ralek Gracie all sent the same message: this guy is done. Cro Cop dominated Choi and got the win, but that was beside the point and still does nothing to help the image of a still competitive Mirko Cro Cop.
Badr Hari gave us an example of timing being everything, especially when tactics done by the likes of Bob Sapp are employed to help boost someone’s popularity. Badr Hari still may be the next big thing in K-1 as he is very talented, young, and has a potentially long career ahead of him. However the incident in the K-1 World Grand Prix final that saw him hit and stomp Remy Bonjasky while he was down not only cost him the tournament title, but may have cost him more than a few fans as his kickboxing match with Alistair Overeem did nothing to help the show’s ratings. My guess is that this kind of stuff worked for Sapp back in ’02 because it all took place on shows that weren’t that important in the long run and certainly not in the final of the biggest tournament of the year; that may have crossed the line. And Musashi has aged quite a bit in recent years with his mystique as the Japanese heavyweight hope leaving as well.
World Victory Road wouldn’t fare much better in their venture at Saitama four days later. But Saitama hasn’t ever been friendly to this startup promotion as Takanori Gomi proved not to be the draw by himself that people thought he would be. Add that to the fact that there is very little to no star power in the promotion outside of the Gomi/Yoshida/Misaki triad. And, like any promotion with only three big stars, WVR promoted this show around those three and their fights; Gomi would basically be unifying his Pride lightweight title with the new WVR lightweight title against Grand Prix winner Satoru Kitaoka in the show’s main-event while Misaki would face Jorge Santiago to crown the promotion’s first middleweight champion and Yoshida faced Sanae Kikuta in a special attraction fight.
To say that a disaster took place for WVR on January 4 would be an understatement as for the first time in MMA history a card full of torch passing results turned out to be a negative. Gomi was submitted in the first two minutes with an Achilles Lock completing his fall from grace, Yoshida lost via decision in an uneventful fight likely completing his tenure as a competitive fighter, and Misaki lost in the fifth and final round to Santiago. The reason this must be considered a disaster if you’re involved in WVR is the fact that the biggest drawing cards the promotion has all just went down on a highly promoted and hyped show as the show took New Japan’s timeslot usually saved for their Tokyo Dome show, something I’ll get back to later.
Santiago could very well become a big star because he’s Brazillian and any fight with a Japanese fighter will be one people in Japan will be intrigued in, especially since he’s a champion now. Kitaoka has now won five straight and this win, while not making him the next Gomi, should make him the next ace of the lightweight division in Japan (at least that’s how WVR should market it as). Kikuta is an older veteran like Yoshida, so this win is one for Kikuta’s highlight reel and not much else as WVR’s heavyweight division fell off in the second half of ’08 with Barnett in Affliction, Kevin Randleman injured again, and Jeff Monson inactive in Japan after the Barnett fight. All of this leaves WVR with no star that people haven’t seen a million times before or can remember fondly from their Pride days. Enter “King Mo.”
Muhammed Lawal, or “King Mo,” is WVR and Japan’s latest attempt to recreate the Bob Sapp effect on attendance and T.V. ratings. King Mo gets the long, extravagant intro complete with beautiful women (one holding an umbrella over Mo) and a crown he wears to the ring, hence the nickname. Despite Mo only being 3-0 as a fighter—all wins in WVR—people have been responding to him more than any young, new fighter, and more than some of the established ones. This does prove once again that even in the fight game, it’s not always about record and in-ring performance, but about the overall show you give the fans; it’s what worked for Sapp until he started losing, and it’s what’s working right now for Lawal. If King Mo can keep winning—he has a fight with Ryo Kawamura on March 20 for WVR—than the “phenomenon” will continue to grow and maybe become an actual phenomenon. The reason why this worked quickly for guys like Sapp or Lesnar, but won’t achieve the same results as quickly for Mo are simple: this type of thing only accomplishes quick results in the heavyweight division (Mo is a middleweight) and Mo doesn’t have as much of the freak show appeal or a past career in pro wrestling to fall back on for drawing and marketing purposes and instead is relying solely on his charisma and ability to continue winning fights.
The reason I brought up New Japan’s Tokyo Dome show is because it produced additional evidence of my “how the mighty have fallen” theory earlier. New Japan—and pro wrestling in Japan in general—has been going through a hellish decline in recent years while MMA rose to the top. However, the quality of pro wrestling as a whole has gotten much better in Japan during the past few years with storylines, pushes, and matches that were no longer insulting to a person’s intelligence or frustrating from the stupidity involved. Combine this with MMA’s decline over the past two years and wrestling may have found its opening. Proof of this lies in the fact that New Japan’s Tokyo Dome show the same day as No Ran did 27,500 paid (the most for a New Japan show in years) a number that will easily beat the combined paid total for both of the MMA shows that took place that week. Based on the numbers, New Japan had K-1 beat in terms of paid attendance fairly quickly and New Japan got their usual nice walkup for the Dome show barely papering The Dome at all, a first in recent years for any big show. But that has become the norm in 2008: MMA having to paper arenas more while pro wrestling is content with more paid-only attendances; they still paper arenas when they have to, but not even close to the extent they were during Lesnar’s IWGP title reign or the chaos of 2005. Take all three of these events—Dynamite!!, No Ran, and Wrestling Kingdom III in Tokyo Dome—and ask what they mean, the answer you’ll get is that in Japan wrestling appears to be back and MMA is in big trouble.
