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« | Home | »

Fuji TV blacklists anyone connected to PRIDE

By Zach Arnold | June 7, 2006

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Yahoo Japan HP:
Yahoo Japan HP: “Fuji: Don’t allow PRIDE fighters on our TV programs”

By Zach Arnold

In addition to Fuji TV canceling their contract with PRIDE, Yomiuri Hochi (via Yahoo Japan) reports that the network has also issued an order stating that any PRIDE fighters or people associated with PRIDE cannot appear on any Fuji TV shows. This includes variety shows, sports shows, and other programming. This is a big development because Hidehiko Yoshida is a commentator for judo programming on the network.

In essence, fighters like Hidehiko Yoshida, Mirko Cro Cop, Emelianenko Fedor, and Kazuyuki Fujita are being blacklisted from the network. How will the network respond if many of the PRIDE fighters jump to K-1? Will the network blacklist them in K-1 as well?

Media notes

Gendai Net bluntly has a short article that says the reason Fuji TV cancelled PRIDE from their network is because PRIDE is or is associated as a boryokudan (yakuza violence group) company.

Kakutolog has a fantastic timelime summary of events regarding the last few days of PRIDE activity. It’s in Japanese, but if you can translate it – excellent, excellent resource full of links. Here is an image from the Kakutolog site, which is what the newspaper coverage of Fuji TV canceling PRIDE’s contract looked like.

A Hostile Environment

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the scheduled date for a DSE press conference. It’s scheduled to take place at Tokyo’s Prince Hotel 11F at the Takasago room (from 11:30 AM-12:45 PM). Posters on 2ch, a Japanese message board, note that there are two banquet rooms (here or here) that PRIDE could use for the press conference. With tables, the seating arrangement can fit around 80 people. However, with chairs and a table or two, around 130-150 people can be fitted into the room. Given how many DSE staff members and media members there will be at the conference, it’s going to be very difficult for any fan (as highlighted in this post) to even fit into the room. A giant room will be needed.

Marketed as appearing at the press briefing is Nobuyuki Sakakibara, Nobuhiko Takada, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Kazuyuki Fujita. On a Sports Navigator news release, they are claiming that 50 fighters and 200 fans will be in attendance. The SN release also claims that Fujita is rushing back to Japan from his current training session in America.

Also, according to the 2ch thread, angry fans are contacting the Prince Hotel and asking why the hotel would allow “a yakuza company” to host a press conference in the building. With DSE openly asking fans to appear at the press conference event, Thursday is going to prove to be an extremely chaotic situation.

Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

7 Responses to “Fuji TV blacklists anyone connected to PRIDE”

  1. Dr. Keith says:

    Does this affect Razor Ramon Hard Gay at all?

  2. PizzaChef says:

    I’ve been saying this for quite a while now, but this is the perfect opprotunity for Dana White to splash out big bucks for Fedor, CroCop, etc.

    I do remember on CroCop’s website there was a mention of the UFC asked him about working at his shows last year during the whole Fedor vs. CroCop fiasco.

  3. […] « Fuji TV blacklists anyone connected to PRIDE […]

  4. Green Hornet says:

    Shaolin, I have to disagree with you. While I’m not saying Zach is right all along, your claim of “While zach may think hes right all along, and I was to critical of him reporting no news about pride, unless it was negative and had to do with the yakuza, (such as skipping important notes such as prides owgp ratings which did great) many japanese fans are also calling bs on the yakuza excuse” is so not true. Everyone who follows Fightopinion can find results right after any PRIDE events and ratings a couple of days later. DSE’s Yakuza connection has been spotlighted since Kawamata filed the criminal complaint against DSE, which is of course negative. You got to make it clear Zach brought it out because it is negative not it became negative because of Zach’s reports.

  5. bushido says:

    shaolin, while everyone can understand that you’re feeling a bit upset at whats happening to pride, dont you think its weird that you are trying to blame zach arnold for it?

    if you dont see ratings reports or other information on zach’s site, then maybe you need to read them in a little more detail

    arnold is just reporting what is being reported in japan and i think he does a very good at it. he is the only site who reports what is being reported in japan. the other sites, well, i dont think you can call them independent (they live of advertising revenues from dse and sales of merchandise). clearly, saying that zach has an agenda is a load of crap. the fact is that the other sites have the “agenda”

    by the way, in japan, there is absolutely no doubt that fuji cancelled pride due to their links to the yakuza

  6. ishizaka says:

    zach: keep up your independent and unbiased coverage!!!

    even if the PRIDE fans dont like it. most of us want to hear about what is going in the background and who we are paying our hard earned money to

    the only people who are pissed at your coverage are hard core fans of pride who dont want to hear about the problems with pride (ie., the fact that dse is owned by the yakuza).

  7. Tradition Rules says:

    Just my 2 cents here:

    First, yes Zach does give us more than just “yakuza reports on PRIDE” I know ALL the results form PRIDE shows, very often including post fight comments from the fighters,…all right at Puroresu Power. I don’t go to any other sites for MMA news or results.

    Second, Zach can’t fill up an entire web-site w/ nothing but yakuza PRIDE related stories, he has to give the results. Especially since so many people on the net complain how “he doesn’t cover wrestling anymore, just MMA”. I for one would hoenstly like to see a bit more coverage of wrestling. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE MMA, I’m just more of a puro fan.

    Third, OF COURSE this “yakuza scandal” is nothing but a scapegoat reason to dump DSE. The fact is, both were caught w/ their hands in the cookie jar,…DSE’s hand was just caught alot deeper in the jar & with a hell of alot more cookies. By that, I mean Fuji TV is a “respectable TV network”,…I hope you all know I mean they are supposed to be respectable. Fuji TV is now viewed in a bad light, this is just a way to distance themselves from any yakuza involvment. We all know that Fuji TV was thinking, “Well WE’RE not doing anything wrong,and we don’t KNOW if the rumors are true about DSE & yakuza are true” when they did know. Lets face it: It makes sense for them to do it, if they didn’t dump DSE after all this gloing public, how bad would they look THEN? It was really their only option to try to make themselves look like good guys,…or at least, not so bad.

    T.R!

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