« Bob Sapp’s side of the story | Home | PRIDE Bushido 11 ‘Survival’ – Preview and Analysis »
“K-1 & UFC Strong Tag Alliance”
By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Today’s Nikkan Sports newspaper has a bombastic article talking about an “aggressive” tag team between K-1 & UFC, with both sides starting heavy co-promotional deals. The article talks about Chuck Liddell maybe working the HERO’s 8/5 Ariake Colosseum show in Tokyo (or the August K-1 Las Vegas show), with Kazushi Sakuraba and Norifumi “KID” Yamamoto working in America. Dana White is quoted in the article as saying that Sakuraba and Yamamoto are great fighters and that he would like to see them in UFC.
The article goes on to claim that the UFC 60 show (Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie) drew 20,000 fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles (the real attendance is lower) and a claim of 800,000 PPV buys (don’t ask me where they get these numbers). K-1 views their tie-up with UFC as the best way to expand into the American marketplace.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, K-1, MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Hey, at least the UFC wisened up and made sure K-1 sent some fighters to its show before it sent anyone to K-1. Remember, the UFC sent Liddell to Pride but Pride’s promises of sending fighters to the UFC never came through.
I’m still scratching my head why the UFC didn’t show Sakuraba on camera at the last ppv. Instead we get the Wayans dufus no 2 mispronouncing Royce’s name and making fun of the sport. Ugh.
This is Steve Pinder from Karate Kast. I am starting to play promos on my show for other Martial arts podcasts. If you would like yours play on my show, please email me. There’s no cost for the advertisement. Just create it, put it up on a server, and send me the link.
Steve Pinder
[...] For those who have spent years covering K-1, one thing is for sure — they can tell some great stories in the press (such as their multiple accounts of trying to book Mike Tyson), but don’t put your life savings on the claims always being 100% accurate. On May 31st, I noted a funny Nikkan Sports article in which K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa was claiming that the UFC 60 PPV drew 800,000 buys. Oddly, that posting got very little response online. However, recently another post online made the same claims and got some traction. When UFC President Dana White was asked about those claims, he said it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard of. [...]