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UFC press conference today in Japan
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2010
The promotion held a presser today in Tokyo with Jamie Pollack (photo), counsel for Zuffa, leading the announcement of the fight card for their 3/31 event at Bojangles Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pollack’s last time in Japan wasn’t so great — he was sent by Zuffa to try to head-up the shinsei (newborn) PRIDE resurrection attempt after the asset sale with Nobuyuki Sakakibara.
At today’s press conference at Wald 9 in Shinjuku (Tokyo), it was announced that the UFC Charlotte event would air on TV Tokyo, the smallest of the free-to-air broadcast networks in Japan. In other words, UFC will not make much of a dent in the Japanese marketplace. TV Tokyo is a pay-for-play station. You bring the sponsors and pay for the time, you get it. The 3/31 show will air on TV Tokyo on 4/8 in a one-hour slot from 10 PM to 10:54 PM JST.
Pollack at today’s presser (photo) said that UFC was aiming to expand into Japan and that signing “big names” like Gomi, Okami, and Uno were part of the marketing plan. OK. In usual grandstanding bluster, the TV Tokyo sports executive at the presser said he hopes the UFC show will draw a double-digit rating. (A realistic rating would be in the 4-to-6 % range.)
A taped video by Dana White was played at the press conference, saying that the three Japanese fighters (Gomi, Okami, and Uno) are “Japanese legend fighters.” Which means those fighters will all fight in the top 3 slots on the card, right? Nope — Okami fights 3rd and Uno 4th, both dark matches in America.
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Dana hates Okami for stinking up the joint then turns around and calls him an “MMA legend”? Lulz.
They won’t make much headway in Japan. If the domestic MMA isn’t selling why would the outsiders? It has nothing to do with UFC’s roster being better than DREAM’s roster as the Japanese always put nationalism first and want to see Japanese fighters first and foremost. I doubt UFC would ever hold a show there.
Dana could do a spot for that spray on hair stuff, maybe sell some rice cookers to offset the losses…
TV Tokyo may be small potatoes, but it is still a big step up from WOWOW
UFC shows have aired in the past on TV-Tokyo…
I dunno. It is like moving from STARZ to MyNetworkTV. They’re still hardly visible on the Japan TV landscape.
It’s always nice when a Zuffa executive manages to get through an entire paragraph’s worth of thoughts about Japan without repeating their mantra of, “Those crazy Japanese! They’re all crazy over there!”
Its their money. I wish ‘em luck, even if I expect none.
Surprised to see Jamie Pollack back in Japan. Didn’t the Yakuza run him out of Tokyo the first time around??
Interesting that Pollack showed up a couple of months after Zuffa quietly settled with Sakakibara over the court-wrangling about the asset sale deal gone sour. Calmed the waters a bit, I’m sure.
Plus UFC is not a threat to K-1 and never will be. At this point Japan will be nothing more than a minor international market for the organization. Once Pollack got the treatment he did the first time around…
I heard WWE wants to run Ryogoku Kokugikan twice this Summer in Japan. Hope they enjoy the empty houses…
Dana should just drum up some old school Japanese support by mocking Korean names.