Did either sart at 10am? Secondly neither of those markets resemble what Japan is like. The fans in brazil and australia just want to watch the best MMA possible which is in the UFC. The fans in Japan believe they are #1 and a company like the UFC is seen as foriegn. FFS when they bought pride they told the Japanese they would get a superbowl show and lied. They set up an office in Japan and the Japanese ran them out of town. Japan is totally different!!! And thats a point which people dont seem to understand.
Australia's started at 1pm and originally Brazil's was scheduled to finish at 2am. As for how successful the event will be. I expect them to be able to make a go of presenting one event a year...there's less MMA fans in the UK and Australia than there are in Japan and they were still able to fill arenas. A permanent presence in Japan? No that's not going to happen but considering they're talking about annual shows only I don't think they're looking at either.
IMO if they run a card along the lines of... Shogun Vs Rampage 2 Nogueira Vs Cro Cop Okami Vs Wanderlei Gomi Vs Pettis Yamamoto Vs Pickett With people like Mizugaki, Santiago on the undercard then it could sell pretty well IMO, though maybe it'd be better to stick another fight on there to introduce some new guys to the Japanese fans.
The UFC tried this before. They failed spectacularly. There's no market for the UFC in Japan. It's really that simple. Their culture doesn't appreciate or like their product. The UFC would be better off focusing on Europe. Even that has serious challenges.
Its somewhat ironic that the UFC/USA just doesn't get this. When they themselves are exactly the same.
Very interesting read. Going through all the Pride Yakuza stuff now. This is quite strange, actually. It doesn't seem as if UFC are too blame, really. Apparently they wanted to stage Pride shows in Japan but it was on lockdown thanks to the Mafia and probably, the market wouldn't be interested in UFC running it. It seems they don't like UFC at all even though they aren't being controlled by a Yakuza and purely because it's not Asian? Japan is a crazy ****ing territory, it's so fascinating. Even the wrestling industry in Japan is completely different.
MMA has been very big in Japan from at least the 1800s. Look up words like Merikan, Ishu Kakutōgi Sen, Shooto, ReMix, Pancrase, Valkyrie, UWF, etc...
Um actually UFC is MMA and MMA is part of Japanese culture? Oh and I do kickbox and box and y'all probably dont, at least not successfully.
