PRIDE: 2 Years After
Posted by Alan Conceicao on March 27th, 2009
In the 24 months since PRIDE was finally announced to be ending as we knew it, many things have changed in the MMA landscape, though perhaps not to the level that was often argued it would be. In retrospect. PRIDE’s collapse and the subsequent reconstitution of the Japanese MMA scene is seen today as a mixed bag. Do not let the arguments that it was any sort of success sway you: The purchase of PRIDE and the subsequent activity has been nothing less than an unmitigated failure, one given a pass on account of “difficulty” with varying factions, something the companies that have followed in its wake rarely get from English language media.
To start with the American side of events, Zach Arnold did many a great service by translating numerous articles regarding the yakuza scandal that ultimately brought down the behemoth and led it into the jaws of a waiting Zuffa. Along with his translations came two key predictions made: One was that the UFC was completely unprepared for any sort of campaign to market themselves successfully in Japan. The other was that the Japanese MMA scene would crumble in the absence of PRIDE as a result of karmic disharmony originating in its almost total obliteration of pro wrestling and continuing through to its own corruption. Zuffa at that stage was on a roll, having just garnered its biggest pay per view number ever only 3 months prior and signing away Mirko Cro Cop from PRIDE with what was considered one of the largest contracts in the history of the sport up to that point. PRIDE, meanwhile, had seen faltering ratings in recent years, that while still excellent among sports programs, were below that of K-1 and its stars Yamamoto, Akiyama, and Sudo. The power structure in MMA was changing, and PRIDE was ill positioned for the long run, having failed to create a new Japanese or gaijin superstar since Hidehiko Yoshida’s entrance.
The events that transpired following the death of PRIDE and its subsequent purchase by Zuffa are then glossed over. We are reminded that the UFC does own the tape library of PRIDE and sells their DVDs, as well as uses the video to promote their fights, all the while able to keep that video from being promotionally tied to other organizations (such as Affliction). Along with that, two of PRIDE’s belts were able to be “unified” with their UFC counterparts, forever linking the current lineage of the 205 lb and 185 lb titles to the “true” championship of the sport. As with the UFC welterweight title before it, the owner of the belt is the undisputed and true champion of the sport. Those were all successes. To list the failures, however, is a far longer list.
The most obvious failing was the inability of the UFC to resurrect PRIDE. TV outlets weren’t interested in producing or televising the stained organization, nor did the UFC seem interested in finding partners to assist them in the work of a Japanese event, instead deciding to rely on a handpicked office of Zuffa employees to push forward the work of finding TV deals, venues, and renegotiating fighter contracts. The attempt at repeating the DIY ethics that had lead to much of their profitability in the US crashed and burned in Japan. Zach Arnold was on point: Dana White and the Fertittas either were completely unprepared or unwilling to do business in Japan. The lesson was not learned though, as the reaction for Yoshihiro Akiyama’s signing proved just one month ago. Subsequent reminders that the UFC would not seek such expansion have not recieved nearly as much interest.
Arnold’s second prediction was the failure of the Japanese fight industry, and he had that right, to a point. Zach could not have predicted Genki Sudo’s shocking retirement, Akiyama’s greasing against an ancient Sakuraba, or Kid Yamamoto’s decision to make MMA a part time venture. That, combined with the departure of so many top gaijin to the US, eliminated huge tracts of star power from the Japanese MMA contingent. Adding to the damage was a 8 month freeze during the botched revitalization of PRIDE. Zuffa’s attempt to integrate many fighters found nothing but failure: Fedor refused, Barnett was never offered, and most of the best lightweight talent decided to sit and wait, believing that there were bigger guaranteed paychecks in store when their contracts would expire. The careers of Takanori Gomi and Mark Hunt never properly recovered from this freeze, and the ability to promote hot talents like Shinya Aoki perhaps stalled past their ability to be effective. With questions about the future, many of Japan’s top prospects entered the Cage Force Tournaments looking to get contracts with the UFC and escape the limbo that had fallen over the country.
Many months later, this limbo is long gone, and Cage Force’s effectiveness to build such prospects greatly minimized. Most lightweights and welterweights are back in Pancrase, DEEP, Shooto, and ZST as part of a much more concerted effort to focus fighters back into the rings of Sengoku (thanks to the financial contributions of discount retailer Don Quixote) and the K-1 driven DREAM promotion. While DREAM has operated as a sort of “Zombie PRIDE”, lurching across the landscape with its once popular fighters in a variety of alluring TV bouts along with the occasional interesting tournament fight, Sengoku’s approach brings back memories of Shooto’s bigger events, or of RINGS, as both organizations instead went full speed ahead to build their own new stars to replace the ones of old. Zach Arnold readily admits that he expects DREAM to be contracted and rebooted at some point in the future, which seems at odds with the viewpoint of a fullbore and permanent collapse in terms of MMA interest in Japan.
Returning to Zuffa and their handling of PRIDE, it is remarkable that such a bungled effort sees such little interest retrospectively, particularly when talk of great business prowess is so rampant. Some estimates of the purchase of PRIDE range upwards of $70,000,000. Even at a quarter of that, the UFC violently overpaid for the ability to ice the careers of Joachim Hansen and show videos of Wanderlei Silva running through Japanese pro wrestlers. The MMA world is only slightly clarified: outstanding claims on the lightweight and heavyweight crowns certainly exist, as they do also for the WEC “titles”, however much or little the Anglocentric world may feel the need to review such. The major promotions in Japan still are anything but united when it comes to the “Unified Rules”, and for all the doomsaying, its hard to believe that a sport capable of selling 20,000 tickets will disappear without a trace from Japanese consciousness any more easily than it could here in the US. Perhaps what is most stunning is not how different the world after PRIDE FC is, but rather how similar.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:25 am
[...] Total MMAPRIDE: 2 Years After [...]
March 28th, 2009 at 1:02 am
I miss PRIDE. It was definitely the better of the MMA experience, especially at the time and place it existed.
DREAM and Sengoku are putting on some real awesome shows. I think DREAM.5 was the most exciting card of the year in 2008, and the first round of Sengoku’s Featherweight tournament was excellent.
MMA in Japan will never die. And if it does, there’s always the memories.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Very nice article. Some concepts left unexplained and seems to lack a thorough conclusion, but some very very good points and thoughts brought up!
March 28th, 2009 at 1:21 am
MMA as we know it in Japan could easily die off. I love it, I love the spectacle of it all, the entertaining mismatches and the fighters.. But Japan is a fad-based country, and there is nothing in MMA to make it ‘cool’ right now. All of the big stars jumped ship (Wanderlei, Fedor, Akiyama), are worn out (Cro Cop, Sakuraba, Yoshida), or their 15 minutes are up (Sapp).
March 28th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Yeah, Dave…you know…that fad of Shooto celebrating their 20th Anniversary will definitely go away this year. Guess it won’t peak again until Shooto celebrates their 30th.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
No, I didn’t mean SHOOTO. SHOOTO, Cage Force and DEEP. When I say “MMA as we know it” I mean the giant, elaborate shows that attempt to draw in the casual fans. The smaller leagues will stick around no matter what, but the bigger ones will keep struggling and I think we could end up with just K-1 running MMA fights on their kickboxing cards or something like that. Who knows, maybe it’ll peak again.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Very nice article. Some concepts left unexplained and seems to lack a thorough conclusion, but some very very good points and thoughts brought up!
The point wasn’t to write some Michiner sized tome, which is basically what you’d need to do to explain what’s happened in the last 4 years or so. The basic points are these:
-For the public goals laid out by Zuffa when purchasing PRIDE, they met almost none of them. The ones they did meet were either totally easy or incomplete. That is not “success”. It is actually the complete opposite thereof. Oddly, they received not much criticism for that, instead successfully deflecting the blame to essentially the entire Japanese business world.
-Japanese MMA survived. It is not 2001 and there are no football stadiums filled with people, but it’s not dead and buried. It may very well be in an irreversible decline. It may also be in a rebuilding phase as it generates new stars. Look at what happened to K-1 last night: two weeks ago the idea of a Japanese K-1 heavyweight champ was borderline laughable if not seemingly impossible. Now they have one, something they have sought since Masaaki Satake back at the start of K-1.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Some interesting points raised, but you really are a butcher of prose.