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« | Home | »

The happiest man in the world because of Fedor losing is…

By Zach Arnold | June 26, 2010

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Miro Mijatovic.

I’m about to give you a unique history lesson that you probably won’t read elsewhere. In many ways, Fedor losing tonight historically means a lot to me because it’s kind of a closing on a chapter of history that never really got a proper end to it (the end of PRIDE).

If you don’t recognize the name Miro Mijatovic (and I’m sure most of you don’t or forgot), he was the super agent in Japan who had the two mega power gaijin aces under contract: Fedor and Mirko. This was in 2003. Miro did work as a lawyer in Japan and came from very deep Australian credentials. He ended up doing some service work for swimmer Ian Thorpe in Japan.

Miro came into the MMA world and became one of the “big three” agents during the PRIDE era. You have Motoko Uchida, Akira Maeda’s former secretary in RINGS, managing BTT (Brazilian Top Team). You have Koichi Kawasaki, who represented Chute Boxe Academy. You had Miro who was representing Fedor and Cro Cop.

Miro had managed the careers of both men pretty damn well and dealt with all the politics that you’ve seen played out in public; only he had to deal with it in private and make sure everything went smoothly. He did his job.

Then came the New Year’s Eve wars of 2003. Antonio Inoki got into the game. Seiya Kawamata, admitted yakuza fixer, got involved with the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye show for Nippon TV. PRIDE had their deal with Fuji TV. K-1 had their deal with Tokyo Broadcasting System. Fedor would end up fighting on the NYE event and Cro Cop bailed on Miro to go to Ken Imai, who was closely aligned with PRIDE boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara. If you recall, Mirko was supposed to fight Yoshihiro Takayama on the Inoki show but backed out due to back injury claims. We know what happened next.

Eventually, the strings got pulled in PRIDE and political backstabbing was the norm. Miro watched as Cro Cop and Fedor, his two big fighters, fought each other. In the end, Miro became one of the key components to the implosion of PRIDE because of how he was threatened by certain individuals and how the yakuza scandal unraveled. He faced a lot of hardship privately from the scandal and it essentially drove him out of the fight business.

While I do not take joy in watching Fedor lose, I do understand why his detractors are celebrating tonight. It is a sense of closure on the PRIDE era. However, for those who lived during the PRIDE era and got burned by it, tonight’s loss has an extra-sweet taste to it.

Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

15 Responses to “The happiest man in the world because of Fedor losing is…”

  1. robthom says:

    I think that was for the best.

    I think this is gonna put Fed back into the mix with the rest of the boys.
    Finklesteins Cash cow is a man again.

    Fed’s head looked pretty cool all waxed.

    Where the heck is Gina?
    Meisha Tate is always a treat, but it also made me notice the lack of Caranogarian element.
    Guess she’s moving on, thats cool.

    Scott Smith is still garbage.
    How dull is he to fall for that same Right,Left,spin kick combo again right after the last one?

    Le looks so goofy before he gets warmed up.
    Looked like a different person, and like he was actually in a fight in the second round.

    Healy looked pretty good.
    I was worried for Thompson right up until he got his sub.

    I think Healy is worth keeping an eye on.

    How bout that Cuddles!
    She sure can take a beating.

    I enjoyed the show overall.

  2. Mr. Roadblock says:

    I’m the second happiest guy!!!!

    Awesome. Now maybe all the nuthuggers will STFU. Ah, that’s probably wishful thinking.

    But once again, I was right. Fedor is exactly what I thought he was. And I laid on Werdum!!!

  3. Brendan says:

    Calling a man like Scott Smith “garbage” is pretty indefensible. While not the best or smartest fighter out there, he has as much heart and drive as any fighter in any weight-class, and deserves your respect.

    Zach, thanks for another great post. Between the massive transcriptions and the cool side stories like the one here, you have maybe the most consistently interesting mma blog out there. Every post is worth reading, and a lot of them contain info I likely wouldn’t have seen elsewhere. Thanks for not being another cookie-cutter MMA headline site.

    • robthom says:

      Oh dont get so bunched up.
      I’d call my brother garbage if he deserved it.

      Its not meant out of disrespect, its a figure of speach.

      And I never said anything about his heart or drive either.

      How about this:

      “Scott smith, although in possession of a kindly heart and loving disposition, is fighting skills and ring intelligence challenged”.

      Is that better?
      Are you gonna be okay now?

  4. Jonathan says:

    This right here is the kind of story that I come to this site for. Give us more of this stuff and less of the radio transcripts, you know.

  5. IceMuncher says:

    I’m not convinced it isn’t Dana. He’s been jumping through hoops trying to make a deal with him for years, to the point where people are remarking that Dana is obsessed with Fedor.

  6. Hugo says:

    Damn, this article got me all nostalgic for the Puroresu Power days.

  7. Anon says:

    is there enough dirt for a tell all book?

  8. robthom says:

    “It is a sense of closure on the PRIDE era.”

    Thats an interesting way to look at it.
    I kinda considered the Pride era over when it went out of business.

    Although if everybody has to be a Pride guy or a UFC guy, I always considered Werdum to be more Pride guy then UFC.

    So take heart Pride Guys, at least its still in the family eh?
    🙂

  9. cutch says:

    hopefully it is the end of the “pride era” they are MMA fighters, who cares what company they work or worked for. Shogun is a UFC fighter, Fedor is a Strikeforce fighter does it matter that they fought for a promotion that died over 3 years ago?

  10. rainrider says:

    With another career awaiting him, Fedor would be too busy to care about the blue collar festival at this point. He probably has to think hard to remember who Mijatobitch was.

    • Zach Arnold says:

      With another career awaiting him, Fedor would be too busy to care about the blue collar festival at this point. He probably has to think hard to remember who Mijatobitch was.

      Oh, I don’t think that’s the case at all…

  11. Mark says:

    Dana is certainly the happiest of this. He’s been obsessed with the idea that Fedor is only lauded because he isn’t a UFC fighter and that’s some kind of revenge against UFC domination (man, I’ll gladly take being the billion dollar company if the worse that happened to me was a bunch of nobodies online said my champion wasn’t #1 in some meaningless ranking.)

    And I think (hope, anyway) in the past 6 years Mijatovic has moved on from getting burned by the Inoki deal. And I think he has. You’ve got to have thick skin to do any kind of agenting when there’s so much fakery, double crossing and conning especially in that era. I’m not saying he wasn’t happy about it, but he doesn’t have the investment in seeing Fedor lose that Dana does in 2010.

    But why is this the end of the PRIDE era 3 years after the fact? The PRIDE era ended when they held their last show with past and present fighters coming into the ring to celebrate with Sakakibara to close the show. And I don’t recall Wanderlei losing to Chuck being hailed as “the end of the PRIDE era” heavily either, and that carried much more weight since a UFC guy dominated the PRIDE guy than a PRIDE guy beating a PRIDE guy. PRIDE got caught laying in bed with criminals and paid for it with their company, that was the end of the PRIDE era.

    • Zach Arnold says:

      And I think (hope, anyway) in the past 6 years Mijatovic has moved on from getting burned by the Inoki deal. And I think he has. You’ve got to have thick skin to do any kind of agenting when there’s so much fakery, double crossing and conning especially in that era. I’m not saying he wasn’t happy about it, but he doesn’t have the investment in seeing Fedor lose that Dana does in 2010.

      If you recall in the yakuza scandal, the Inoki NYE show at Kobe Wing Stadium saw a lot of the guys from Golden Glory get stiffed on pay. Miro had been working with GG for that show and he ended up having to pay out of pocket a lot of money after Kawamata was nowhere to be found.

      And, if you recall (according to Gendai), Miro found himself in a hotel room being threatened with a weapon after that show took place when Kawamata’s yakuza henchman turned on him and were (supposedly) on the other side.

      You don’t forget these things when you’re out of a lot of money and you had to spend a lot of time in court (Miro won a court case against Kawamata to get a lien on Kawamata if he won his case against Nippon TV but that didn’t happen) and when your life is threatened.

      Fedor (and Mirko) caused that man, who has legitimate business credentials (hotel business/investing and legal world), a lot of suffering.

  12. […] disputes is two years) because they still want to keep getting booked or they don’t want to be threatened at gunpoint in hotel rooms. I mean, you can’t possibly make this […]

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