Comments on: Thursday media notes

By: Zach Arnold

Zach Arnold — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 16:30:29 +0000

Whether it’s Bobby Ologun, Choi Hong-Man, or whoever PRIDE gets for Mirko, it needs to either be so outrageous that it’s a great freak show match or someone who is a serious, legitimate athlete. No more Mirko vs. Minowa fights!

By: Preach

Preach — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 16:03:32 +0000

No, it hasn’t been confirmed. And just like Gaijin said, Fightsport’s “headline news” usually have the quality of “Aliens impregnated me with Hitlers sperm and stole my JFK-Baby while i was vacationing on Atlantis”. But the guys over at the sherdog forums are absolutely eating it up, and are blabbering about this being proof that Pride is in great health, since they can pay an unproven commodity like Choi that much money…

By: JOSH

JOSH — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:17:27 +0000

Has it been confirmed that Hong man is in PRIDE?

By: Zack

Zack — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:05:44 +0000

I thought Pride was on free TV in S. Korea?

By: jwebb

jwebb — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 02:27:16 +0000

THey might not have a tv deal in japan but signing the big korean means massive ppv buys in korea

By: mmaguru

mmaguru — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:48:52 +0000

well i should have been more clear i dont mean sakaikbara himself but somebody from the pride brass did something that was overboard.for all those tv stations to just leave all that money on the table tells the whole story.nobodies willing to work with these guys

By: JOSH

JOSH — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:45:06 +0000

Whose to say Sakakibara screwed up? Honestly nothing that has been printed has rightfully pointed the finger at Saki, and Im sure if the allegations were remotly true DSE would have forced Saki out of his posiiton because of the problems he is causing. Again the stigma of being involved with the Yakuza IS NOT GOOD…though EVERYONE does it…having people in the media know about it…is a death note.

By: mmaguru

mmaguru — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:45:17 +0000

Gaijin… obviously theres alot we dont know something happened behind the scenes and it must have been pretty bad in order for all those stations to just walk away from all those millions of dollars that the pride nye show brings in.i dont understand why all the pride fans dont take out thier anger on sakakibara hes the 1 that fucked up.i imagine it has to be pretty hard for them not to succeed in japan selling martail arts

By: JOSH

JOSH — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:27:36 +0000

Gaijin: the Yakluza is as legitimate a buisness as the Mafia is. Granted the japanese public at times turns a blind eye to the Yakuza BUT they are still a crime organization that loves to launder money which in any world IS ILLEGAL. The problem is that like the infmaous Capone, it was hard to come up with evidence to prove the laundering. EVen in the PRIDE case there is no concrete evidence of laundering but the stigma of the case has a huge influcence over everyone involved. The simple fact that a goverment audit of PRIDE funding will be invovled means any investor will also have their funding audited and NO ONE (clean or not) wants that to happen. Imagine if there was even a rumor of McDonalds being funded by the mafia….man investors will be leaving them like rats leaving a sinking ship. So yea its a pretty big deal that wont go away like nothing.

By: The Gaijin

The Gaijin — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:01:21 +0000

Zach: Maybe you can clear something up for me…this whole TV fiasco has been over Yakuza involvment within or alongside DSE in their promotion of PRIDE correct?

I thought that the yakuza/organized crime was seen as quasi-legitimate business in Japan and can’t really seem to figure out how this is leading to the apparent downfall of a once internationally dominant mma organization. Last NYE they drew pretty huge ratings and I can’t see how they wouldnt this year (with a similar budget and tv deal). So what seems to be the whole problem with actually getting a tv deal – shouldnt this be something thats easily fixed??? It seems they’re having an extraordinary amount of trouble with something that doesn’t seem to be so troublesome. Something like pro-wrestling, that I would consider far more fringe here than something like MMA is in Japan, can easily find new networks when it gets dumped or doesn’t like its deal….whats the problem in Japan??

Is this something that would be rectified with new ownership and a clean slate?