Opinion: On the Eve of WTF

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If “Pride never die,” then whatever metaphysical goop gave the promotion its MMA immortality seems to have leaked into the blood of its former promoter, Nobuyuki Sakakibara.

At Bellator 142 on Sept. 19 in San Jose, Calif., Sakakibara stood alongside Bellator MMA boss Scott Coker, Spike TV President Kevin Kay and heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko to announce a large-scale New Year’s Eve event in Japan, headlined by Emelianenko and slated to be broadcast live on Spike TV. Ironically, this Bellator card was subtitled “Dynamite” -- a nod to Japanese combat sports company K-1’s flagship series that eventually became the focal point of fight sports on New Year's Eve and, of course, former Pride Fighting Championships boss Sakakibara's primary competition.

Kakutogi, or combat sports, are a Japanese -- and, by extension, MMA -- New Year’s Eve tradition, but like many traditions, it has lost its cultural impact over the years. Japan is no longer the nexus of global MMA activity; we are 10 years removed from the last reverberations of the Japanese combat sports boom in the early- to mid-2000s. Whether you remember Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett fighting actor Ken Kaneko, or you came to MMA long after the magical luster of Dec. 31 had worn off, you likely have a similar question: What the [expletive] is this event all about, anyway?

MMA is a sport made up of integral actors with disparate motives, and this event is a paragon example. The value of a major MMA event on Dec. 31, 2015 in Japan really depends on who you are.

The magnetic force in this fuss is, of course, Emelianenko. If not for Emelianenko, the anticipation surrounding his return from retirement and the foolish glimmer of hope that he would end up in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, this certainly wouldn’t have warranted an announcement on television, nor would it be on Spike TV’s schedule. Emelianenko was never a massive sports star in Japan the way some Pride and K-1 contemporaries were, but he is certainly popular enough, given the desperate Japanese MMA climate, to be the linchpin for this project while anchoring interest in other parts of the world.

From the moment Emelianenko announced he would fight again, it was known that he would be looking for a flexible one- or two-fight deal that would allow him to fight in Russia and/or Japan. Dave Meltzer reported that “The Last Emperor” has a two-fight deal with Sakakibara’s outfit and will make $2.5 million flat for New Year’s Eve, assuredly fighting lesser competition than he would in the UFC and offering none of the sponsorship or ancillary rights restrictions of a Zuffa deal. If after NYE Emelianenko decides to retire again or soldier on for another paycheck, he has carte blanche to do either and pursue those ends however he chooses after those two fights. Business-wise, balking at the UFC again was a no-brainer for Emelianenko.

It was also a historical no-brainer, as well. Perhaps due to the western language barrier and his general sangfroid, Emelianenko has often been portrayed as an archetypal “simple sportsman” and at other times perhaps even a pawn for his promoters, handlers and religious confidantes. On the contrary, history suggests that whether or not he was the lone architect, Emelianenko has always been an opportunistic, no-nonsense businessman.

So long as we’re consulting the history book, Emelianenko’s business dealings are the catalytic force in the death of the Japanese MMA boom. The bellwether moment came on New Year’s Eve 2003 -- the year Pride, K-1 and Antonio Inoki all broadcast competing combat sports shows live, occupying three of Japan’s five major TV networks. Emelianenko, then the Pride heavyweight champion, appeared on the “Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye” card against New Japan Pro-Wrestling star Yuji Nagata. At the time, Emelianenko’s Pride appearances were brokered through manager Miro Mijatovic, who represented Russian Top Team’s interests. Mijatovic’s deal with Pride parent company Dream Stage Entertainment was strictly negotiating for RTT, so Emelianenko’s backer, Vadim Finklechtein, created Red Devil Sport Club, which Emelianenko, brother Aleksander Emelianenko and several other former RTT talents joined. Through the creation of essentially a quasi-gym-slash-shell-company, Mijatovic was able to book Pride’s heavyweight ace for Inoki’s competing NYE show, much to the fury of Pride.

In dealing with Inoki and, more specifically, Inoki’s right-hand man and admitted yakuza fixer Seiya Kawamata, Mijatovic and, by extension, Emelianenko became central characters in the Japanese tabloid scandal that would eventually crumble Pride throughout 2006 and 2007. The mob machinations of Pride likely would’ve come to light eventually and the combat sports industry’s prosperity might have waned naturally, but Emelianenko’s decision to massacre Nagata under the Inoki banner remains a pivotal moment in MMA history and one of the primary forces in knocking down the first domino toward the death of Japanese MMA's dominance.

So “The Last Emperor” is here for a king’s ransom -- that much is clear. The motivations of Coker and Spike TV aren’t hard to decipher, either. Spike gets to feature an MMA legend coming out of retirement and get some interesting live programming for cheap. Bellator gets to be associated with Emelianenko’s return and perhaps throw a handful of fighters on the bill to buttress it. At a time when one of the elite young fighters the company has, lightweight champion Will Brooks, is complaining about activity and compensation, that’s always a considerable bonus.

It bears mentioning that there’s an awkward tension with Spike airing a New Year’s Eve event orchestrated by Sakakibara, given that former Spike chat show “MMA Uncensored Live” aired an extensive piece on the Shukan Gendai scandal and downfall of Pride, by Daniel Herbertson, in February 2012. It included a candid interview with the aforementioned Mijatovic. It’s all the more suspect, given that the links to that interview have been removed from Spike.com. MMA can make for odious bedfellows and there is a moral objection to be raised, especially if Spike’s website is getting some well-timed “maintenance.” However, the problem is indeed a moral one; it’s not as though Kay is sitting down with Sakakibara and a bunch of yakuza bosses. This is a TV network buying the rights to a live sports product, cold and transactional.

Which brings us to the former DSE frontman Sakakibara himself. Since the death of Pride in 2007, Sakakibara has focused his efforts on promoting fledgling soccer club Ryukyu FC from Okinawan obscurity to the J. League 3, all while staging concerts and sporting events under his Ubon Inc. banner. Sakakibara’s entanglement in the Pride Shukan Gendai scandal and Japan’s cultural concept of public contrition necessitated his relegation to obscurity, but the word on Sakakibara was always that he wanted to get the band back together and promote MMA again; it was a matter of timing and opportunity.

Whether or not this is the ideal timing and opportunity is highly questionable and says a lot about how truly moribund Japan’s combat sports climate is, at least with respect to widespread public interest. If there were a ready-made mainstream fighting star in Japan, one that could help resuscitate the kakutogi industry, he or she would have been identified by now and trotted out by some promoter less tainted than Sakakibara. At this point, Sakakibara isn’t necessarily toxic, but the fact that he is the lone power player willing to invest in the pipe dream of restoration is telling. He is nonetheless tainted, and he is playing the role of the sentimental, jilted ex-lover, the man who couldn’t control his public tears on multiple occasions during Pride’s dying days.

Sakakibara is said to be backed by unnamed Middle Eastern benefactors, the sorts we’ve seen in the sport over the last five years, content to throw lavish, exorbitant cards with no real expected financial return. It’s nice to have capital, but that’s far from the only resource Sakakibara needs to make Dec. 31 any kind of success. Without a domestic television deal with a major broadcaster, the event represents absolutely nothing to Japan. New Year’s Eve is a big deal in Japan because of its association with family gathering together to watch television; it is the country’s top TV-watching night of the year. After all, it’s not like promoters have stopped doing NYE events in Japan since Pride’s death, as Sakakibara’s disciples put together the “Yarennoka” card in 2007, headlined by Emelianenko and Hong Man Choi, Dream NYE events and Deep NYE shows of varying scale. However, “Yarennoka’s” Emelianenko-Choi and Yoshihiro Akiyama-Kazuo Misaki bouts were implanted into K-1’s “Dynamite” time block on the Tokyo Broadcasting System, and the others went unaired.

Furthermore, for a venture like a large-scale Japanese MMA promotion, a network TV partner needs to be present to provide consistent programming, to build stars and push the product. Sakakibara doesn’t want to throw once-a-year MMA events; he wants to promote an MMA company, and even with dump trucks full of money, it’s a fruitless proposition without the necessary TV partner.

It’s hard to be on TV, sports or otherwise, without a star; and again, Emelianenko isn’t that sort of star. There’s a paucity of options for Emelianenko opponents, especially when you consider that the best the former DSE braintrust could do for “Yarennoka” was Choi, and that was eight years ago, before the UFC’s stranglehold on international MMA was as tight and before Bellator had developed into a clear second fiddle.

Japan is unique in the sense that a potential combat sports star, for TV purposes, might not need to fit the profile of a great fighter. The right pro-wrestler, Olympian or television personality could click with the masses in a surprising way, best illustrated by the fact that failed NFL’er Bob Sapp became a full-scale cultural phenomenon; the highest-rated fight in NYE history is Sapp’s K-1 rules bout at “Dynamite 2003” against sumo legend Chad “Akebono” Rowan. It drew a 42.5 percent rating, by the way. Let your brain melt a bit.

Regardless of Japan’s mystical star-making alchemy, you still need the raw elements to work with and Sakakibara is stripping in a barren mine. We come back to the idea of different actors with disparate motives: Emelianenko is going to get paid, Spike is going to get Emelianenko-headlined programming and Sakakibara’s backers will get to enjoy the opulent NYE fight party they sponsored. Again, that leaves Sakakibara.

In order for Sakakibara to get what he wants when the new year rings in, he’ll need to be exceptionally clever to create a card that can even spiritually approximate Dec. 31 offerings from Japan’s kakutogi boom. Sakakibara needs a cultural Trojan horse, but he’s the only one inside that body of the beast that really cares if they make it inside the castle.