mma won't go away.

HW K1 is actually holding up pretty well recently considering Remy and Hari have both been sidelined.

The impression I'v always gotten is that the fallout from the "beast TV" years with Sapp in the mid 00's was when K1's popularity really declined from its peak years in the late 90's/early 00's.

 

K-1 is only holding up well in comparison to Dream.

 

Yeah thats what I said, the big dropoff was a few years ago(partly the Sapp backlash, partly Semy being considered boring) but over the last 2-3 years there popularity has been reasonabley steady.

Rather supports the idea the Japanese are even more obcessed with big men than americans. The lighter weightclasses can do ok with a popular native fighter like Kid or Matsato involved but the big men are what draws the consistant interest and MMA has lost almost all of them to the US market.

 

I don't think its that really...I think its three things. One Pride and K-1 spent way too long promoting freakshow fights above the guys who could actually be credible, long term stars. Secondly the infrastructure isn't there to support a niche product. Japan only has network television and network television demands a level of ratings performance that most combat sports are struggling to meet. If Japan had its own version of Spike or USA Network then the likes of New Japan, K-1 and Dream could regular television that was actually watched by people. Lastly Japan is an extreme fad culture and MMA was a fad that burned itself out.

To me to accuse the UFC of being a fad is silly - you don't have six year fads.

 

The fact that the Japanese MMA business model was geared towards mainstream popularity naturally made it more prone to being fadish I'd say but I don't think that was the prime reason for its decline.

As I said I don't think freakshows are much of an issue and they've never gotten in the way of big names having quality fights. You certainly can't say someone like Aoki has lacked legit tests over the past 2-3 years.

Whats the big difference between K1 and MMA? neither has really got a super popular Japanese star right now but K1 has been able to hang onto its best HW talent due to a lack of competision from the US while MMA hasnt, that combined with the disruption of Pride's death is the major reason for the sports decline IMHO.

 

The point is that if your constantly putting freak shows on top then you're sending a clear message to casual fans that the likes of Aoki aren't actually that important. That fighters who have been repeatedly and comprehensively exposed are actually bigger stars than the fighters who your promotion actual relies on in the long term. So yeah the legitmate fights are being made but nobody other than hardcore fans actually cares about them.

I think you're right that the collapse of Pride was a body blow but your overstating competition from America as the main problem. Which big names left Japan to go to the UFC before it was starting to become clear that Pride had run into problems? Fedor didn't, Nog didn't, Cro Cop didn't, Wanderlei didn't, Sakuraba never has, Sapp never has, Yamamoto and Akiywama left way after Japaneae MMA had hit the buffers.

As for the difference between K-1 and Dream...well again I think your overstating how healthy K-1 is...its better than Dream but its certainly not in a good way. But the fact that they have the tradtional brand helps maintain loyalty plus (strangely given its a more brutal sport) more of the legendary kickboxers from the golden era are still around to boost the ratings. Plus in Badri Hari they had a new star that connected like nobody has in MMA since Yamamoto's "retirement".

 

Pride's problems where entirely down to the Yakukza scandle losing them the TV deal, up until that point they were still doing very well in terms of ratings(actually surpassing FEG on NYE for the first time just beforehand) and still carried on drawing large live audiences.

Aoki has been in a ton of main events on Dream cards and when he hasnt its tended to be the multiple smaller fights he takes between big matches. Minowa's freakshows have gained in importance over the last year but it was clear well before that Dream werent drawing Pride level interest, indeed I'd say there prominance is more a reaction to the more legit MMA of Dreams first couple of years failing to draw interest than the other way around. Going back to Pride I really can't see how you can claim freakshows got in the way of building up future stars, there werent even a great many of them and the vast majority were lower down the card.

K1 isnt in rude health but its pretty clearly healither than Dream and Max, as I said I think a big part of that is that you don't need "lighting in a bottle" popularity of Masato or Kid to sell larger fighters in Japan, legit exiciting fighters will draw interest without having to be a native with personality.

 

Are you human? Or a UFC "bot"? You actually think PRIDE's K-1's demise is because of a few freakshow bouts? And its "niche" status ( in your minds eye mind you )

 

How about you actually read what I wrote instead of trolling like usual. I wasn't talking about the collapse of Pride but FEG's current problems.

Pride wasn't a niche product...because you can't run a niche product successfully in Japan.The problem with that situation is that its all or nothing. Something is either a huge mainstream success or its struggling to survive. The UFC is a niche product in the USA but its successful because there's PPV and Cable Television, two things that make today's UFC worth far more than Pride at its peak despite Pride being a vastly bigger deal in Japanese culture than UFC is ever likely to be in American culture.

As I've already said Pride had far bigger problems that brought it down but when it lost network television that was the death knell. Ever since Japanese MMA has struggled to hold down regular spots on network television and so doesn't have the presence to make new stars. At the same time the whole model menas that they make far less money on their remaining fanbase (which is still comparable to the UFC's fanbase in the US) because they can't secure multi-million deals with cable television nor can they sell fights successfully on ppv. If Japanese television was structured like American then K-1 and Dream would be fine.

And yes I do think the constant freak show bouts did hurt Japanese MMA in the long run. Just like putting Kimbo Slice in UFC main events would in the long run have hurt the UFC if they had done it.

 

20 years from now and the people who are detached from reality will still be saying, "Just you wait, man, it's just a fad. It'll go away and we'll go back to sucking each other off thinking about the fight that never happened."

These threads are deja vu from years past.

 

Actually, that described me perfectly.

Here in the US football gets 1,000 times more coverage than basketball and I ****ing hate it. I really wish the sport didn't exist.

As for MMA...if it dies and boxing starts to thrive again I won't be shedding any tears. If it dies and boxing stays the same, I'll be indifferent. If it sticks around, I'll be more or less indifferent.

 

Dream is K1; K1 owns Dream.

 

...and what might those problems be? before the Yakuza scandle Pride was actually drawing some of its biggest ever TV audiences, indeed I'v always suspected that Seiya Kawamata coming forward and his alligations getting the press they did was due to FEG's influence after Pride had beaten them in the NYE ratings war for the first time. They would likely have suffered from the UFC drawing talent away in the coming years but this idea that Japanese MMA was already on the decline post Sakuraba is UFC fanboy urban legend 101.

I really don't see how you can deny that big foreign fighters don't sell well in Japan, did I just imagine K1 being hot as hell in the late 90's/early 00's with Hoost, Aerts, Hug etc at the top? did I imagine guys like Crocop, Wanderlei etc headlining cards and being massive fan favourites? A very hot native talent often drew the very highest numbers but the core popularity of K1 and Pride post Saku decline was based on those big foreign names. As you said Hari has caught on in a similar fashion and Overeem seems to be drawing a good deal of interest even its more of the "who can beat this guy?" kind.

I agree with you about the other point, Japanese MMA's business model isnt setup to deal with its decline in popularity, with no PPV nore prenium TV culture there struggling to make money out of whats become a niche fanbase.

 

That would be approximately 1 month after the JDS/Lesnar fight and after a full season of TUF, you might want to recalculate cause it ain't dying there.

You're right about that, boxing fans do know their sport more. there is way too many boo's and fighters having to explain/apologize for their performances in MMA, a lot of fans are way too impatient and have no clue of what's going on in a clinch or on the ground and it pisses me off too.:twisted:

IMO fans are 50% casuals and 50% hardcores, and that's probably where the UFC succeeds, they know how to bring the casual moronic meatheads to pay for their shows, while the real passionates will just watch this sport forever.:good

 

Too many PPV's and too much MMA fights on regular tv will eventually dull the sport into apathy.In a couple of years you will see a decrease in popularity.It is called overkill.