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Welcome to the DREAM world
By Zach Arnold | September 5, 2010
Sherdog’s Tony Loiseleur has play-by-play on Twitter of today’s press conference:
Dream 16 bouts announced: Kazuyuki Miyata – Lion Takeshi Inoue, Joachim Hansen – Hideo Tokoro, Shinya Aoki – Marcus Aurelio. Another fight will be announced later tonight at 9:00 online by Dream, according to Dream EP Sasahara. Aoki, Tokoro, Lion, & Miyata just rolled out. Aoki is wearing the Japanese-made Nick Diaz shirt. Miyata: “I’m not gonna lose at this weight class.” Tokoro says he’s happy to be fighting Hansen. Aoki saying he wanted to fight earlier this month but will do his best. Lion looking forward to rep Shooto. Aoki looks like he’s smirking. Sasahara telling me to ask Tanigawa at the next K-1 presser about paying fighters late and Zuffa’s Asia expansion. He’s passing the buck. Aoki was laughing at my questions while Sasahara looked slightly peeved. Schadenfreude, I guess. Sasahara deflecting my Qs to an absent Tanigawa meant that my asking about their financial state woulda been useless. I’m saddened that the other reporters were sighing at me for hijacking things and taking attn away from D16 to ask real Qs tho’. Tough crowd. Thanks to @usatmma and @thaimmakb for reminding me abt Aurelio in Shine tourney. Sasahara said he sees no problem w/Aurelio doing it b4 D16. Oh, Sasahara says they were in talks to get Sandro & other SRC guys but they seem to have fallen thru. Unlikely now to see SRC reps in D16. Lion talking now about wanting to fight Takaya in Dream. Unfinished biz from the Shooto days, perhaps? Tokoro saying when he heard he was fighting Hansen, everyone around him was like “WAT?” and they’ve been worrying abt him. That said, Tokoro has had to psych himself up for the fight while everyone else just worries about him. Sasahara saying there’ll be 5 fights total announced by tonight, and then they expect 4, 5 more announced in future. Yes! Boutreview just asked “why announce so late?” Good Q Ihara-san! Sasahara pauses for a bit, hesitates b4 saying “there’ve been issues. I’ll explain it as soon as the event is over.” Hmm… okay. Earlier in the presser, Aoki called out Gomi. Take that for what you will, given the current MMA geopolitical situation… Aoki talking now about reporters being indiscreet asking certain Qs at press conferences. Didn’t know he was related to Shane Carwin. Aoki saying he doesn’t like us indiscreet reporters asking negative Qs, so he wants to brighten things in his Nagoya performance.
I have a few comments about what was said here…
Tony mentions that reporters were sighing when he asked “tough” questions. Here’s my true feelings on this — Tony is a brave man to ask the questions he asks (especially given the hostile climate in the entertainment world there these days). Truthfully, what Tony asks is relatively tame and just straight-up questions, but in the Japanese world where a lot of the media are either paid off with favors or long understood not to ask tough questions or else you’re ‘wasting time’, this is why they *sigh* when a gaijin asks a simple question like, “Is your promotion broke? Why is your card late?” Also, it doesn’t help that Tony is an American, so it’s simply chalked up as another ‘here’s the annoying gaijin again’ question. Group-think, don’t rock-the-boat mentality.
As far as DREAM is concerned, take note that these press conferences never have Ishii and that Tanigawa only shows up occasionally and never shows up when the perception of ‘bad news’ is being delivered. In this case, the ‘bad news’ would be that they don’t even have a full card line-up yet to announce.
Regarding Aoki’s attitude, all I can say is that he’s got a combination of a Napoloenic complex mixed in a vibe of thinking that he’s a draw when he really isn’t and doesn’t mean nearly as much to a lot of people as he thinks he’s worth. It seems, more than anything else, that jealousy is what fuels Aoki as opposed to pure ambition or dedication. The problem is that you can only go so far in life when your main source of internal power is feeding off of the anger or irritation of/from others.
With three weeks left to promote the show, it’s another largely pedestrian effort at booking a card.
I would encourage you to give Tony support and follow him on Twitter and also Sherdog.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Great stuff from Tony.
Wish more MMA journalists would hold the JMMA promoters feet to the fire on the issue of screwing over fighters.
That has nothing to do with “Japan.” Same questions would have been met with the same eyerolls from the media that covers Zuffa.
You are right, people would have eyerolled if a reporter brought up the UFC not paying it’s fighters…. Because they do pay them.
DREAM has a history of not paying fighters and therefore it’s a valid question.
Wah wah waahhhhhhh….
Its a reporters issue. I think at the end all of them are mercenaries. In Zuffa you speak bad about the promotion and you get ban, the same for Japan media.
And just a stupid company is gonna respond that kind of question\’s:
Q.- ¿Your company its broke?
R.- Yeah, we are broke.
Come on, dont be so silly.
I find it interesting that out of the first 3 responses, 2 of the people have mentioned Zuffa…. When this topic has absolutely nothing to do with Zuffa. It’s as if their disdain for Zuffa is so heavy that they have to knock them down in order to proper up their inferior Japanese MMA.
1) Downright avoiding a question at a press conference is bad. M-1 has used this same tactic on conference calls where they will say the person with the knowledge of the topic is not there and then they will do anything to avoid the question in the future. If somebody is a figure head, he better know the answer, or at least give a time frame in which he can get that answer by.
2) Not paying fighters is a HUGE issue. It shows a disrespect to the fighters themselves and gives many indications that the company is strapped for cash. The media’s job is to report news… which they have done by letting fans know fighters aren’t getting paid. And secondly, they are they to keep the organizations accountable for their actions. Tony is doing this, and instead of people cheering him on…. Trolls like Snowden are putting him down. More on that later.
3) Getting an answer to these problems are crucial for the American MMA Press to get out to the public… And specifically the fighters and managers. Fighters need to be aware that if they fight for DREAM that they might not get paid what they are being promised.
As for Snowden specifically…. We all know you are a troll over there at BE. But this isn’t BE, so I have little fear of being banned if I go up against your opinion here….
Instead of taking organization sides and then writing completely slanted articles in order to just get page hits for BE…. How about you take some notes from Tony and realize what he is doing is BENEFITING both the FIGHTERS. Which is really what this sport is built around. The fighters need to know what organizations are flakey and unreliable so their management can either write contracts differently or avoid the organization due to a lack of compensation.
Fighters are people. They have families to support. They cannot put 2 to 3 months worth of training towards a fight, leave their family for a foreign country…. Only not to be paid. That is completely unfair. How about you take a step back from the garbage you write… Stop worrying about bashing Zuffa every 2 seconds…. And find some real issue in MMA that will benefit the fighters themselves?
This is a perfect example of a real serious issue in MMA…. And all you are doing is using it as a way to bash an organization that actually pays their fighters.
45 Huddle,
What you’re having a problem with here is exactly what you do to other, non-UFC promotions. I understand you having a problem with it, just realize that the problem you have is exactly the same problem that other people have with you and your myopic posting.
My internet stalked has returned.
Stalkers usually aren’t of the highest brain power, so let me try and say this as simple as possible….
1) UFC does about 80% good. That means 20% is not good. Those percentages are in line with how much I praise or am critical of that company. With a guy like Snowdumb, he has it backwards. He is bashing the UFC 80% of the time. Which is out of whack with reality. Hopefully I didn’t talk over your head here….
2) If the UFC did not pay fighters, I would in no way support them.
Outside of fixing fights…. not paying fighters is about the worst thing a promoter can do. It is extremely serious. And it needs to be discussed more.
Instea, Snowdumb only wants to make snide comments. It’s useless in this discussion. If Dana White didn’t pay his fighters like DREAM is doing, I would be
sh!ttingall over White and the way he handles his business…..44 Huddle,
Throw insults at me all that you want to.
If you have read what I said, I was merely pointing out that many people (across multiple websites) have the exact same problem with you that you have with Jonathan Snowden. I was in no way supporting “not paying fighters.” I think it goes without saying that I think all fighters should be paid a fair wage for their chosen profession.
And as for me being your stalker, if you did not continually bash everything that is not the UFC, then we would not have a problem. There are some things that you post that I do not have any problem with, and even support. Also, you get a lot of my responses (as well as others) because your posts tend to be long. When they are long, there is a greater chance that there would be something to reply to. Nothing wrong with long posts, in fact, I encourage them.
“Stalkers usually aren’t of the highest brain power”
I think I just experienced a lulzgasm. Do you realise using statistics without, y’know, any empirical data to back them up isn’t the type of thing an intelligent person would do?
You aren’t going to get answers to questions like that at a press conference. That’s not where that kind of reporting is done. Those questions were there to impress. Ok. Got it. Tough reporter was on the scene.
By the way, I challenge you to find a single article of mine “bashing ” Zuffa.
The funny thing is, in the American MMA scene, the biggest story related to DREAM is their financial situations (it doesn’t help that they held a big press conference intimating that thet were getting a $200M US investment).
None of the fights on the card are relevant to the US fight scene, so what would Tony ask about? I’m surprised he even bothered to cover the presser.
With so many people wiht no integrity and mortgages, do you expect them not to appease zuffa???