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Sengoku 8/2 Saitama Super Arena
By Zach Arnold | August 2, 2009
- Akihiro Gono vs. Dan Hornbuckle
- Heavyweights: Yoshihiro Nakao vs. Choi Mu Bae
- Heavyweights: Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Blagoi Ivanov
- Lightweights: Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Clay French
- Sengoku Lightweight Championship: Satoru Kitaoka vs. Mizuto Hirota
- Sengoku Middleweight Championship – #1 contender’s match: Kazuo Misaki vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura
- Featherweight GP Semi-finals: Hatsu Hioki vs. Masanori Kanehara
- Featherweight GP Semi-finals: Michihiro Omigawa vs. Marlon Sandro
- Featherweight GP finals
“The must decision” rule is hideous
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out results from Sengoku’s 8/2 Saitama event. Interestingly, the judges here are using some 10-10 rounds, which is something Jordan Breen and others have argued about for a while in terms of not seeing it in the States.
Referees as judges
I’ve heard of referees as judges before, but never playing both roles on one show. So, what’s your take – fair or foul?
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s impossible to rank the Featherweight Division properly since there is basically no intermingling of the WEC and Sengoku. With that said, the winner of this tournament (unless it’s a Hansen or Misaki type of win), is likely a Top 3 Featherweight. I think the competition in the tournament was strong enough to warrent this.
I think Hioki might be a bit of “common factor” for comparison, no? He’s had some fights in TKO, as well as a fight with Curran.
Definitely interested to see if Blagoi Ivanov can transition to MMA.
Sandro is gonna take this one.
Marlo Sandro, Wagnney Fabiano and Jose Aldo, are from the same team, Nova Uniao.
In Brazil Nova Uniao is the best team actually now.
Is this the Blagoi/Aleks fight?
I’m glad they’ve got the class to introduce him VS. Aleks (Fujita?) at least instead of Fed!
(Aleks isn’t really that good IMO, Shhh!)
The Aleks fight you are referring to is happening in a different promotion in Korea.
Wasn’t the whole point of them not running Saitama for the last couple of shows due to the struggling attendance?
Now granted there wasn’t exactly a whole hell of a lot of star power on those cards so it’s understandable as to why they ran smaller venues.
While the return of Gono and participation of Ishii may spark interest, I cant see it being sufficient enough to fill Saitama.
Pretty gross dude.
The new picture doesn’t help anybody.
Zuffa Warns Non UFC Fighters Not To Sign With EA ??
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/6/30/931156/from-golden-boy-on-the-ug-i-hear
As I said when EA officially announced their MMA game at E3, it was likely only a matter of time before Zuffa started threatening fighters to keep them out of EA’s MMA game. They certainly didn’t have any problems with threatening fighters in order to get them into the UFC’s MMA game, so why would they have a problem with threatening fighters to keep them out of a competing game?
Also on the “predatory business tactics” front, MMA Payout is reporting that Hayabusa Fight Wear is the latest in the long line of companies that have been banned from sponsoring UFC fighters. At this rate, it will soon be quicker to list the companies who are interested in sponsoring UFC fighters that are NOT banned from doing so, as opposed to the list of banned companies.
I hope they don’t ban Rich’s Tire Barn.
An MMA game from EA is a BIG deal, so I’m not surprised at the rumors. I question how popular an MMA game would be without the UFC license and fighters, but EA is the sports game juggernaut so I’m still excited to see how it works mechanically.
That picture is also kind of creepy.
The Future….
EA creates a fighting game that is mechanically good with a guy like Randy Couture and that is about it. When the UFC’s deal with THQ comes up, the UFC switches over, and the same fight engine along with the UFC Fighter’s names will be huge business.
That’s my prediction.
The UFC is strong arming fighters, no doubt about it.
With that said, I have never understood the point of fighters making issues with video games. Casual fans want to play as their favorite athletes. Fighters should look at it as free advertising, not a way to make a profit. The profit should come from the sponsors and the fight promotions.
Look at the other major sports…. It’s not like the athletes are seeing any real money from the video games. And the only guy to not sign his rights over in recent memory is Barry Bonds.
The UFC’s contract with THQ does expire in 2011, and they could end up in bed with EA in 2012, although doing so would likely only decrease the actual quality of the games. Yuke’s has a far better pedigree as a developer of combat-based games than EA Tiburon, so I’d expect that EA’s MMA game won’t be as good as the UFC games.
There are so many things wrong with those last two paragraphs that I’m not even sure where to start. Athletes in other sports do get paid to be in video games. They also get paid 53 to 59 percent of the sport’s gross revenue. They also have a union in order to avoid situations like, say, individual athletes getting publicly blackmailed into signing away (for free) the lifetime exclusive rights to their own likenesses to a promoter who promised something to a corporate partner (THQ) that he didn’t actually have in writing.
As for players opting out of video games in other sports, the situations are not even close to being comparable. When an individual player in another sport does opt out and chooses to negotiate his own terms to appear in a video game, he’s able to do so, and he still gets paid for any video game that he appears in, and nobody publicly (or privately, for that matter) blackmails him into signing away his exclusive lifetime rights.
Also, the basic argument that it’s okay for fighters to make a pathetically small percentage of the UFC’s gross revenue because, after all, they also make money from sponsors, is an argument that gets weaker and weaker with every ridiculous demand that the UFC places on sponsors and with every sponsor that the UFC bans.
Without Gono and Fujita, the card would suck like a Pancrase event on NHK. We might start seeing fighters from North Korea and PRC.
What did Yokata do to deserve a title shot? I just don’t understand why Kitaoka has to fight this guy again so soon. Where’s Mizuto?
I have a feel that Okami will end up fighting among those guys in the future because he shares the same low frequency NHK vibes.
How to call Japanese MMA professionals beside “fighter”
Warrior= Enson Inoue, Mach Sakurai
Star= Caol Uno, Rumina Sato, Gomi
Talent= Shinya Aoki, Genki Sudo, Sakuraba, Gono
Laborer= many of Pancrase guys, almost all Judo guys
MLB has over 200 players. How much money do you think comes from each game into the player’s pockets? PENNIES!!! So it’s like I said, they are not making any real money off of it.
I wouldn’t even say pennies a game. If you are a second string running back you probably make a cent every 10 – 20 games are sold.
Yeah but Huddle, keep in mind that sports games sell big. UFC 2009 Undisputed hit over a million on the Xbox 360 alone in North America. That doesn’t even count PS3 sales and international sales. Those pennies add up when you are moving that many units. By being forced to give away your LIFETIME video game likeness rights for free, the fighters are missing out on some good coin from UFC 2009 Undisputed.
It may be worth pointing out that this is another “Wise Fwom Yo Gwave” and rescue my daughter post, so you’re responding to posts from a month ago.
Another one-week tape delay to HDNet for this one.
[…] was the heat-up press conference for the 8/2 Saitama Super Arena show and the main topic in the media ended up being… Josh Barnett and his failed drug test in […]
SPOILER ALERT….
I have not seen the fights…. But my dislike for tournaments has become even greater….
Nothing worsen the a guy losing in the Semi-Finals and then winning the finals. Something weird like this seems to happen all too often in these Japanese Tournaments. These fighters are too skilled to expect them to compete twice in one day. Their bodies can’t handle it. Hatsu Hioki should be the rightful champion….
The concept of the tournament, especially 2 fights in one day is extremely outdated.
People always say the Japanese MMA fans are more educated and overall better fans. Yet I can’t understand why they would put up with this stuff. If this happened in the states, on a high level card, people would be blasting it for a month.
RE: Ref as Judge
It’s a bad idea. A referee needs to be concentrating on watching for rule violations and making sure a fighter doesn’t get hurt. They cannot also concentrate on who is winning the fight. If you’re thinking “Did Fighter A connect with more punches than Fighter B?” while missing an eye-poke something is wrong.
RE:Sports game royalties
Like everything else, comparing MMA to the other sport franchises isn’t a good idea. Yes, there’s hundreds of players in sports leagues, but EA MMA obviously won’t have that much. You can compare it to boxing games (not sure what they make but I’m sure it’s good money) or WWE games (where a lot of wrestlers claim they make better money from video game royalties than on anything else.)
Mark is correct on what a ref shouldn’t also be a judge. Not to mention it puts one person with way too much control of the fight. So basically you want the same guy to decide stand-ups, potential fighters, and a decision? That’s too much power.
As for the 10-10 rounds, it’s a horrible idea, especially in America. There are a few reasons for it:
1. American Fans want a winner chosen. Even if it’s a very close decision, they want to see a winner and a loser. Having a lot of draws (which having 10-10 rounds will do), will turn away a lot of casual fans.
2. One fighter always does something (even small) to win a round. The judges need to see this and make the right judgement.
3. There is nothing worse then seeing a fighter with a 15-6-7 record.
“45 Huddle Says:
MLB has over 200 players. How much money do you think comes from each game into the player’s pockets? PENNIES!!! So it’s like I said, they are not making any real money off of it.”
Dude, did you read anything Ivan wrote? You’re the biggest shill I’ve ever seen on the internet, and I started posting on sherdog in 2002 before I eventually abandoned ship.
Dave M,
1. The UFC hasn’t blackmailed anybody. This was brought up before. Ivan keeps on using the word, but he is completely wrong.
2. It has already been discussed to death. A lot of these leagues are 50+ years old and have a long history. It took many years for the players to get where the pay is at an appropriate level. MMA fighters have seen a huge increase in pay in only 5 years. The main event fights alone have seen an increase in over 500% (if not much more for some fighters). It makes no business sense to hand out 50% of all profits towards the fighters immediately. That kills bargaining power in the future.
If you notice, UFC fighter pay is still going up, which it should be. If it was stagnent, then it would be a topic of discussion. However, if you look at the trend of the cards (and reports of unreported pay), the pay scale is going up. Therefore, there is little to complain about. This is smart business. If they ran a business like you or Ivan wanted them to, they wouldn’t be putting on fights anymore.
3. I believe the Zuffa fighters should form a union. Until they put their own interests to the side for the good of the sport, they deserve what they get. And honestly, those are still pretty darn good paydays.
4. The UFC never puts restrictions on what fighters can get sponsored by outside of the UFC. They do however put restrictions on what they can be sponsored by while on a UFC program. That is no different then every other sports league. Most have very large restrictions. The one that doesn’t is NASCAR, and even they don’t allow certain products.
This isn’t schilling. This is called being an informed fan. Before you throw out an insult, learn a little bit first.
The minimum royalty payment to the NFLPA is $25 million per year for Madden NFL Football. Divide that 2000 ways.
The scandal in football licensing is that the deal between EA and the Football Hall of Fame gives each player in the Hall of Fame only about $2000.
Note that Madden has been consistently one of the top selling video games for about a decade, and that EA was able to raise the price of their football game after they signed their exclusive agreements because 2k Sports was no longer able to release their games each year, which they had been pricing lower since somewhere around 2001, and EA had to follow them down the price structure to compete.
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I’m not clear whether the refs are reffing and scoring the same fight or not. If they’re reffing some fights and scoring other fights, I’m not sure that I approve, but there’s not a straight up conflict between those roles there.
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What do bloody socks have to do with it, 45?
Re: Sports pay
1) Adjusting salaries for inflation makes them sound better than they are. Babe Ruth famously made $600 in his first baseball season in 1914, but that was good money in those days. And people were just as outraged when he made $80,000 in 1930 as they were when A-Rod made over $100 million in 2005. Granted, early NFL players had to work day jobs to make ends meet during the off-season, but as soon as they began getting television coverage their salaries were very respectable.
2) The increase in salary of sports had to do with the rise of television deals, sponsorships, ticket prices increasing, and many other factors. MMA, or any other sport that would pop up today, gets to bypass all of that. UFC doesn’t have to go through trailblazing the path into national television deals, whereas early sports television was all localized coverage so they couldn’t get the big money of bidding wards between networks. UFC did their legwork in getting MMA television coverage with Spike in 2005, nearly 5 years later we’re still complaining? And boxing revolutionized pay-per-view in the early 80s, the UFC, even though they were taken off during the controversy, had their blueprint laid out for success. They haven’t had to do half of the work other sports leagues had to do to get where they are at.
I can’t believe the whole “ref is also judge in same fight” thing is completely foreign to all of you. That has been done for a VERY long time in boxing. Hell, in the UK, there are many times where the referee is also one of the judges for a fight. Actually, to take it one step further, there are many fights (again, especially in the UK) not only is the referee a judge, he is also THE ONLY JUDGE! Yup, only one judge, that being the referee, scoring a fight. It happens ALL the time outside the United States.
Oh, and about 10-10 rounds. Japanese judges LOVE using 10-10 rounds. I’ve seen Japanese boxing matches (well, at least the scoring and the results) where, for a 10 round fight, one fighter will win with scores of 100-94, 99-96, 100-96. Wacky, I know, but it happens.
I like the 10-10 with the “must” for a 3 round fight.
Too often in UFC fights you see judges set it up a round a piece for fighters in a close fight so that the third round decides it. Then you get a guy who barely edges out the 3rd round and the other guy who maybe really won rounds 1 & 2 gets screwed.
The only way to have a draw in a 3 round fight is with a penalty or a terribly one sided round.
I think this is a great solution.
Chuck is absolutely correct about the ref/judge in same fight thing although this only occurs in the UK in Championship Fights.
I have watched many boxing cards, especially in smaller venues and in states where there aren’t typically a lot of Boxing shows have one guy be the ref in one match and a judge on the next and flip flop like that. As long as they are licensed to do both they are capable of filling both roles on any given night. On big Boxing cards they generally like to bring in different judges for the major fights and use location of the fighters/judges home countries’ as well as previous judging and championship fight judging experience as a major factor in who they bring in for these fights.
10-10 rounds don’t happen too often in Boxing although there are some occasions where an even round is a valid score. Most of the time there is a definitive winner of the round in a judges eyes so we almost never see 10-10 unless Larry Merchant is telling the viewers about his scorecard… which will probably produce one or two even rounds for every fight (that guy needs to retire).
Rp
Actually last year they introduced judges for british title fights last year. Up until then the ref just raised the hand of the winner after the fight.
This still happens on every other fight unless British or any other recognized EU title is on the line.
Usually works well, but there have been some shockers…mor. Mistakes than 3 judges? Maybe not
It seems to be a Nevada thing regarding 10-10 rounds…..I remember Bob Arum went apeshit when 1 judge scored a 10-10 round in a Barrera-Morales fight. A 10-10 round in boxing was seen as a death knell for a judge a few years back, not so sure now.
Way back in Duran-Leonard I if I recall, one judge (A south American I think) scored nearly every round even.
Who remembers half point rounds like they used to use in the UK? May be useful in MMA but would require a LOT of work to implement and then teach the masses.
I bet Kanehara @ +1300. Only $10 but still a nice score.