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NHB News: PRIDE NYE show not on free TV
By Zach Arnold | November 7, 2006
That’s the report in Japanese. It appears that TV-Asahi will not air PRIDE programming on the network for New Year’s Eve. Burning Spirit has more details (in Japanese). The source that NHB News & Burning Spirit alludes to is a television industry magazine called The Television.
Further updates will be added to this post over the next few days.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Zach is probably jerking off over this news and the sure demise of Pride FC.
THIS IS GREAT FOR MMA! NO MORE PRIDE!
Very disappointing. Is the greatest MMA fed of all time on it’s death bed?
The idea of dream matches in the UFC is cool, but MMA without knees to the head on the ground always create a “what if?” scenario in my mind.
With all of the bashing of the UFC that goes on, I find it amusing that Zach gets attacked anytime he reports something that is not completely positive about the UFC.
Whaledog generally shows a bit of a bias against the UFC, yet we don’t rail against him.
Jesus christ. when are you going to stop using blogs as a source for your BREAKING NEWS??
Let me get this straight (this is from all the various critics): If I report from a weekly magazine, it’s obviously just a salacious rumor publication. If I report from a Japanese newspaper, then it’s just some publication looking to produce outrageous headlines with half-truths. And if I link to bloggers, I’m linking to some computer geek who is not credible even when sourcing their item on a published report.
If Asahi comes out tomorrow and throws out the banner that says, “We welcome PRIDE on New Year’s Eve!”, I’ll gladly link to it. But that hasn’t happened yet.
Party at Zach Arnold’s house tonight — lynchman, you’re in charge of the xyience drinks and the “(shhhh) MMA = UFC ” foam fingers.
Now (if it’s true; if; if) fightopinion.com gets to start reporting about the inaptly titled “downfall of Pride” again.
You should start listening to the radio shows, especially what Jeff Thaler has to say about UFC. I find this assertion that we are using pom poms and cheerleading for UFC 100% of the time to be laughable.
And don’t you forget that some people on here say I live in a basement. With no windows. Dark lighting. And a poker table with used beer cans.
Zach why do you even respond to these idiots just keep doing what you do man.theres alot of us who look forward to reading your material
Hell I am still waiting for pride to go under and the execs to get arrested like you said was going to happen months ago.
[…] Zach Arnold of Fight Opinion is reporting that Pride’s New Year’s Eve show will not be shown on any of the Japanese free Television networks. […]
Mr Jwebb- maybe you dont have to wait too long. be patient, you will see both things happen soon.
I’ve been saying it again and again: you just gotta love them pride trolls. Always jumping at someone who criticizes “their” promotion, yet are strangely never to be seen in threads concerning “their” fighters getting caught juicing…
And it’s also always very funny to see them putting Zach down for getting “his” news off blogs. At least he credits his sources, unlike certain other sites who just say that they got it from “anonymous industry insiders” or don’t give an explanation at all…
Why didn’t those Pride trollls go nuts when Stephan Bonnar got busted. It was probably because they bought the UFC hard sell on Spike and think he’s a top 10 205 lber and it’s some kind of misunderstanding.
Also, there is nothing wrong with Zach’s post. He sourced his material. That is what a journalist is supposed to do. MMA is a sport largely reported on by blogs, podcasts and newsletters.
Though I don’t doubt some people here won’t be having a virtual Pride is dead party. I much prefer Pride but I’ll come to the party if you guys have Jalapeno poppers.
When did the influx of trolls happen? I don’t remember it being this bad. The article is fine, he’s reporting on a rumor that Pride won’t get their NYE show on tv.
My question is how much of Pride’s income comes from the NYE shpw advertising? If I remember correctly reports were that Pride makes 15% of it’s income from TV revenue and I would expect a decent chunk of that to be from the NYE show (considering the size of it).
Also everyone assumes that this news is bad but who knows what this will do for the face of MMA. Pride could decide to do something different because of this (and it turn out better or worse). For example: Pride persuing American TV, Pride sending their fighters to fight in other orgs, UFC picking up Pride fighters, Pride restructuring and coming back stronger, etc.
Roadblock, i don’t think that too many people will have a “Yeah, Pride’s dead”-Party, not even Zach (though i guess he’d definetely put an “Haha, i told you so!”-article up on the site, just to spite all the nuthugging trolls). I guess most of us that post on FightOpinion are first and foremost fans of the sport and certain fighters, and don’t care too much about a specific promotion. It wouldn’t be the end of the world for us if Pride were actually to fold, as most of their fighters would just be picked up by another promotion and continue on fighting there.
I’m just happy to see good and entertaining fights, no matter in what org…
Yeah, I’m tired of this ‘team mentality’ people seem to be developing between the two organizations. And I’m not talking about Zach Arnold, rather the people posting in here.
Preach, I couldn’t agree w/ you more (and was being sacrastic except for sticking up for Zach’s journalism in my above post). I don’t get how some people want one org to succeed and the other to fail. It’s similar to hardcore WWF & WCW fans years back. In my opinion we need both organizations to be strong. I think it would be horrible for the sport if Pride were to fail. The top talent would likely get scattered over numerous promotions: UFC, WFA, Bodog, IFL, K-1, Cage Rage, etc and we’d lose all ability to have a clear (or even semi-coherent) top 10 at any weight. What you would have is what has plagued boxing. Every fight is for some dopey belt or another that means nothing and the top guys rarely get in the ring against each other in their primes.
I’m not trying to rile up the Pro-UFC, Ant-Pride crowd but if Pride did fold I think the quality of UFC matchmaking would go way down. UFC has stepped it up decidedly in the November and December PPV cards from what they had been putting out earlier in the year.
What happened to TV Tokyo? Didnt someone report that was PRIDE’s back up plan?
Hi Clint:
It’s significant. They were claiming 15% publicly, but the TV money is far bigger than is let on. Japan has transformed from merely a house show business to now a TV + house show business. PRIDE is strong in the house show business, K-1 is strong on TV. They don’t have both qualities at full strength right now, but K-1 has the better shot at the moment because they have TV.
Remember, it was Fuji TV’s money that helped sign the most expensive fight in MMA history last year with Yoshida vs. Ogawa at a price tag of nearly $5 million USD. Furthermore, Fuji TV & PRIDE was raking in big bucks for ads during the 5-hour long broadcasts. In Japan, the ad agencies run the show (mainly, Dentsu). Dentsu is basically in charge of selling all the ad space on television shows for the networks. So, if Dentsu can’t find good enough sponsors for a show or has sponsors complain about the actions or people associated with a certain program, then Dentsu can cut off the legs of any program it has to. In that respect, it makes the PRIDE situation even more amazing. PRIDE is a product that has a track record on network TV of drawing very good ratings. For the five major free TV networks to pass up on PRIDE, it is a significant and damning statement about DSE. Why? Because you can bet your life that a Japanese TV producer would love to take a chance on a program that could draw a 15.0% or higher rating on NYE. That is the kind of the rating that is of high regard.
As far as PRIDE’s financial model, without television it’s very difficult to be a stable Japanese company. I would expect Bushido shows to be eliminated and to see at least half, if not more, of PRIDE’s shows done overseas. Maybe sold-show format (like in wrestling). Maybe a % basis. Who knows. But in order to do this, they need a major American television deal. A major one.
Hi Roadblock:
I don’t know. To me, it seems UFC’s matchmaking will always follow a similar pattern and won’t change given that they likely won’t change the economic structure of how they pay fighters in the near future.
I think my biggest gripe is that this blog is always much too happy to post anti-pride rumors and put stories about pride in a negative light. I think stories of pride in trouble should have a worriesome tone in the hardcore mma community. I know this blog doesn’t really have an impact on anything but as mma fans we should be kinda bummed that the largest mma org in the world is in trouble. right? If you guys are fans you should quit being douches about the whole thing.
I also want to say I am not at all a nuthugger. I am a fan of great matchups and great fights. I haven’t missed a ufc ppv in 2 years. I am not pumped up to lose one of the best orgs for talent and with knees and kicks to the head of a downed opponent. If K1 picks up the scraps that leaves me with 1 month tape dealy ppvs, fuck that.
You guys also seem to be way to obssesed with prowrestling. I know there are SOME links but keep the blog all MMA and it stays more credible.
Furthermore, quit bashing on sherdog, that shit kept mma alive back in the day.
So let me pose this question to you…
Say you are a TV executivve. And you have a hot TV show that is just bringing in new fans that you didn’t have before. So much so, in fact, that it became a centerpiece of your network’s programming on the biggest day of the year for ratings. And this show continued to draw you good money and good ratings. Your network kept priming the pump.
Then came a rival who said some bad things about people who produced that said TV show. You could brush that off, right? Then a weekly magazine with good circulation picks up on the story and starts finding more and more rivals of the tv show’s producers. And the dirt-digging happens. And the dirt being dug involves criminal activity.
You’re still drawing good ratings and making money from said TV show. However, the producers behind the TV show are starting to suffer from a possible image crisis because of various attacks. You want to keep the programming on the network, but your superiors at the TV network suddenly cut the cord on the show — without warning to you and without warning to the producers of said show.
Now, if you are a TV executive at a rival network that the said show originally aired on, you’d certainly would wonder why that TV network abruptly canceled the show, right? I mean, after all, if the TV show producers were not guilty of the charges leveled against them, you’d want to work with them and draw big ratings with them on your own network, right?
So why are the other networks, given the chance, not picking up the TV show for their biggest ratings bonanza of the year when they could use programming firepower?
That’s the situation right now in Japan. If you follow each question carefully, you’ll probably come up with appropriate answers that lead to reasons as to why the free TV networks are acting hestitant about signing a TV product that should be a sure-fire ratings winner.
Then ask yourself this… if the reason you suspect the other networks are using to not pick up the TV show is what you logically deduct it to be, would you accept the reason?
The Nov & Dec shows both have three marquee style fights
Nov: Hughes/GSP, Arlovski/Monson and Vera/Mir
Dec: Tito/Chuck, Andrei/PDP, Forrest/Jardine
Previously in the year they were trying to sell PPVs with just 2 of those types of fights. I don’t think Forrest/Jardine or Vera/Mir are must see matchups, but both could have been Co-Main Event or 2nd biggest fight on Hughes/Gracie. They are also better fights than Sherk/Florian the Co-Feature at UFC 64 or Swick/Loiseau at UFC 63.
“If I report from a weekly magazine, it’s obviously just a salacious rumor publication. If I report from a Japanese newspaper, then it’s just some publication looking to produce outrageous headlines with half-truths”
Don’t play innocent Zach. It wasn’t just some weekly magazine, or a Japanese newspaper. They were from known trashy tabloids (I’d know, my friends write for them).
I think you need to drop your old grudge with Pride, and quit staining what is an otherwise decent blog.
Mr Roadblock : Have you considered the fact that rather than the UFC upping the quality of it’s cards, the average viewer has become more educated to the fighters that the UFC has been using this past year and a half, making these events seem better to your eye?
It’s a proven fact that competition is a good thing, and that we as fans benefit from two strong competing companies going against eachother. I don’t think anyone is arguing this, but thus the crux of this entire conversation is revealed : Just because we as mma fans WANT pride to be in a position of power, that doesn’t mean this is the case. And you cannot deny that Pride not having a TV deal in Japan is a major issue for them, especially with K-1 breathing down their neck and UFC now considering PRIDE direct competition for market share.
Ryan: I don’t follow what you’re saying. I’ve followed MMA for a long time, over 10 years now. I watch anything I can get my hands on. UFC putting a ton of AA and AAA guys (to use a baseball analogy) on Spike TV and filling their cards with these guys doesn’t equate to me being better educated about MMA. Don’t confuse the UFC marketing the personalities of inexpensive and mediocre to somewhat above average fighters as educating anyone. It’s a smart move businesswise. What the new wave of TUF fighters lack in exciting in ring ability and talent is compensated for by having the audience invest in them emotionally. The thought being that if you care about Matt Hamill because he is deaf you will root so hard for him that you look past the fact he is dry humping a man while trying to cut him with the fold of his leather MMA glove so that three stooge judges who are used to scoring boxing matches to satiate this or that promoter award him an MMA victory.
UFC is smart to get over on the audience this way if they can. They have had success in the past 18 months putting 1 or 2 good matches on a card and filling the rest of it with inexpensive TUF fighters or guys making a debut.
If you read my above post about the three matches per card in Nov & Dec that are interesting you will notice that only Griffin and Jardine come from TUF. Griffin I feel would have made UFC without the reality show. Jardine possibly.
I’m not just baselessly railing on UFC. Pride puts on a lot of mismatches and freakshow fights. But I’d rather watch Henry Miller vs Giant Silva than Cheik Kongo vs Marrero or whatever that guy’s name was. In a perfect world there’d be none of those fights. It would be all Chuck/Silva, Shogun/Fedor, GSP/Hughes and those types of fights for meaningful belts where we can say the winner of this fight is undeniably the best 205 in the world, this guy is tops at 170 hands down and so on.
Zach is DEFINITELY NOT pro-UFC from what I gather. He seems to like PRIDE more. So do Jeff and Luke. It’s Erin who is pro-UFC on the show. If he hated PRIDE so much, why would he spend all that time translating Japanese press for us?
Things are really, really dire for PRIDE right now, there’s no other way to report it (the ones who don’t want to bash PRIDE just don’t report it period. I’m looking at you Sherdog…) So just because everything he writes is negative, doesn’t mean he’s trying to slander them…there’s just no more positive PRIDE news these days. I’m one of the biggest PRIDE fans on the planet, but if I wrote for a MMA website, there’s no way I could pretend like everything is fine, because it’s not. They could be dead this time next year.
But writing about all those Italian guys in really nice suits who attend UFC shows once in a while would be interesting, if you get my drift (and if you’ve ever seen UFC live in Vegas you know what I mean.)
Is TV-Tokyo not free TV all of a sudden?
My problem is that your report from these tabloids and blogs like they are real news. You also make it sound like these things are MAJOR news in japan. When in fact, most people in japan don’t know or care. The only people that do are internet savvy mma fans.
if pride is a yakuza organisation, and the evidence is pretty damning about this. i say good riddance, who wants criminals running what is or should be a sport. criminals running a sport result in
drugs (pride encourages its fighter to juice and use speed)
fixed fights – pride is famous for this
dodgy decisions – pride has its fair share of these
use of criminals to threaten and extort fighters (pride does this)
pride is not mma and mma will be all the better when the criminals are driven from the sport