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Is this the big Japanese arrest?
By Zach Arnold | October 10, 2006
By Zach Arnold
I am strongly encouraging our Japanese readers to help out with gathering information for this story. Please contribute if you can.
In the last several years, times have been tough for the various Japanese media outlets. As business has declined, so have profits and ultimately many publications have had to restructure their companies or lay off employees (as was the case with Weekly Fight newspaper). In one of the last issues of Weekly Fight, the newspaper made a claim that someone big in the fight industry was going to be arrested soon. This created a myriad of rumors and speculation as to which big name was going to be arrested by the police. There was all sorts of speculation (ranging from fighters to promoters). It appears that this speculation was misfocused.
Someone with a sharp eye over at NHB News has picked up on what could be a very explosive story in regards to the impact it has on the Japanese fight media. The NHB News post claims that the President of Gong (which has Weekly Gong and Gong Kakutougi magazines) had his house searched by Tokyo Metropolitan Police (specifically their organized crime task force(s)). The post links to a newspaper report in Tokyo Shimbun about the owner of a computer company called ADTX. The claim is that ADTX, which was created in 1993 and listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange (Hercules) in December of 2001, started creating false financial statements (“window dressing”) after the company started going into debt. The company was delisted from the stock exchange and the Tokyo Shimbun report lists the company’s debts (as of February of 2006) at 14.9 billion yen.
Because this story could get so complex and so detailed, I am hoping that our Japanese readers can help out with story details and/or news links to this.
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sorry I can’t give you more details, but my sensei and his buddies were all talking about how Yamamoto Kid is getting in trouble right now for drugs.
That is all I heard. I’ll keep you posted if I hear more.
Matt – that was the rumor being spread on all these various message boards (an arrest for “medicine”), but no one has come forth with any sort of proof at all. I consider it a non-story until something legitimate is proven.
“but no one has come forth with any sort of proof at all. I consider it a non-story until something legitimate is proven.”
But feel free to label heads of major fight promotions as yakuza because the tabloids and 2chan said so.
Someone give Fuji TV and demoted producer Kunio Kiyohara a call. That didn’t turn out so well. 🙂
“Someone give Fuji TV and demoted producer Kunio Kiyohara a call. That didn’t turn out so well.”
so basically you have knowledge that fuji tv had actual proof that kawamata’s stories were true? you should write about this knowledge on your site.
by the way, i have heard same thing as monkeymatt at my dojo, not just on web.
The reason that the Kanagawa investigation pretty much was delayed or halted (based on all the facts that I know of) is that the supposed witness that was needed for questioning, “Mr. I” (Ishizaka), wasn’t found to be talked to.
Once Kawamata went public against the Police and basically trashed them (claiming that they let Mr. I go while he was under surveillance), his days of being friends with them were done.
In regards to Fuji TV, on the surface they had no reason to dump PRIDE’s programming. The shows drew strong, PRIDE beat K-1 on New Year’s Eve with Ogawa vs. Yoshida, they did well for the Osaka Dome show, and suddenly the cord gets ripped away? Fuji TV admitted they had their own internal investigation (and Kiyohara was the focus). So much so that Kiyohara, who was the link between the network and PRIDE, ended up getting demoted. There were employees who were questioned by the police, but the main focus was Kiyohara.
Everyone talks about PRIDE’s background, but the other real story was what Fuji TV apparently discovered in regards to Kiyohara (who’s father was/is President of Sankei Shimbun) and why things fell apart. One of the things that was curious about the various Gendai articles is that (this being my best guest) that they were getting information from people inside the police or who were close to them.
I wasn’t a big fan of the way Fuji TV handled the situation in the end. Legally, I could see why they kept quiet about the reasons for dumping PRIDE. However, the supposed reason of Chairman Hieda wanting to get rid of PRIDE right before the stockholder’s meeting… what can you say?
OK, follow me here closely.
– 2-3 alleged yakuza people get arrested in February by the police. These people, according to Kawamata, are claimed to be his ex-yakuza guys who he claimed jumped over to DSE’s side. The arrests only (not Kawamata’s story) were covered by the national media (print and TV).
– Gendai starts their negative campaign against PRIDE. The extent of the writing I did in regards to Gendai articles was based simply on what they wrote. Meaning what they wrote, I did the best I could to translate over to English.
– During this time, there was the civil case proceedings between Mijatovic and Kawamata (Miro won), and then Kawamata and N-TV (Kawamata ended up losing later on after Fuji TV cut out PRIDE). There was plenty of information released by all parties that would soon end up being used by various media writers (whether it be to sell books or just for reports).
– After both Nippon TV & Fuji TV had their PR departments flooded with questions from media asking the validity of the Gendai stories, PRIDE threatens legal action against Gendai.
– Sakuraba leaves PRIDE to go to K-1.
– PRIDE runs well at the Osaka Dome. Less than 30 days after that show, Fuji TV sends a lawyer to drop the bombshell notice to PRIDE that they were cutting ties. PRIDE hosts a press conference a few days later to address the story. Fuji TV refuses comment (including at their stockholder’s meeting) as to why the cancelation happening, despite their PR department admitting that the Gendai campaign was influencing their decision (and that an internal investigation had taken place).
– Kiyohara ends up getting demoted and PRIDE has continued to run PPVs on SkyPerfecTV PPV.
Throughout that entire story, I have simply relayed information that was reported on a mainstream scale in Japan. Whenever it was a newspaper article, it was linked. Whenever it was a TV clip, that was linked. Whenever it was an article from a magazine, that was summarily translated and credited. Therefore, there’s nothing to either be ashamed of or concerned with regarding the sourcing of what was reported.
I was hoping that readers would help out with the story that was discussed in the original post. I wold be grateful for any information, should it be publicly reported, to be posted on the new story.
most people know the chronology. yes, you are right, events such as sakuraba leaving, fuji tv cuts pride, etc. were reported by mainstream newspapers and tv channels. there is no argument about this.
however, i think b’s point is, where is the proof about underlying accusations? did any media show the proof behind Kawamata’s story (besides his own word)? did any media show the proof that 2-3 arrested people have a connection to kawamata and bom-ba-ye incident? did any media show the proof that the police are investigating DSE persons?
if the only source for these things is 2ch and shukan gendai, then it is matter of opinion whether these are “reputable” mainstream media. my opinion is that 2ch and shukan gendai are not.
If the stories from 2ch (which has been sued — and the operator is in “hiding”) and Gendai were completely 100% false, I am sure that they would have faced enormous problems (given the major charges they assigned to PRIDE re: yakuza). What was being written was very heavy allegations.
In order for a major TV network like Fuji TV to drop PRIDE (given how successful PRIDE was on the network), there likely had to be some truth to either the allegations made in the media (or in the network’s internal investigation about its employees). Fuji TV needed to communicate better than it did. It left many more questions than answers.
If the police (or a district court) come out publicly and rule against Gendai (or 2ch or various other media outlets), I would definitely write about that.
[…] Before you start flooding this post with replies about other topics, let’s discuss the red-meat topic of the day that Gryphon has alluded to. Background about the situation can be read here (this is from October of 2006). […]