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Quote of the Day: J-ROCK’s Kokuho on Shin’ya Aoki
By Zach Arnold | April 30, 2009
Well, the claws are certainly out in the Japanese fight business:
“The problem is that DREAM isn’t really gaining traction beyond their TV shows,” Kokuho said. “If you look at DREAM right now, there’s hardly anyone that people recognize outside of [Norifumi] “Kid” [Yamamoto], [Kazushi] Sakuraba and [Hideo] Tokoro. Ask anyone outside, you won’t even find a hundred people who know who [Shinya] Aoki is.”
Unfortunately, you won’t even find a hundred people who know what Sengoku is, either. (As opposed to say, the hundreds of thousands in Ontario who want to support UFC.) A low-blow comment for sure, but this is a promotion that never releases any attendance figures for Saitama Super Arena events or other shows covered by the Japanese media (not even worked numbers!).
The irony of Kokuho’s comments to Sherdog are thick on so many levels.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Did you read that interview or just cherry-pick that tidbit? It appears you’ve just taken that quote out of context in an attempt to manufacture a feud between the two orgs (which, if you read the interview, you will see there is not).
The only really ironic thing is you implicitly suggesting that a promotion, whose sole modus operandi is to treat MMA as a serious sport, should release worked attendance numbers.
If you read the entire article, you’ll see Kokuho is actually quite pragmatic about the whole Sengoku vs. DREAM thing. “The claws are out” is a bit absurd.