Sherdog.com Exclusive: One-on-One with PRIDE’s Sakakibara

Gross: The ring, I would suggest, is more prevalent than the cage worldwide. There are more events in a ring than in a cage. But there are also many events now that use the five-minute round system. I think the 10-5-5 minute round system is unique to PRIDE. But there are shows like SHOOTO and Pancrase and many Japanese shows that don’t use that round system. Is that something in the future that PRIDE would be willing to look at changing or is that something, as well as the ring, that is very important and would not be looked at?

Sakakibara: Again the 10-minute, 5-minute, 5-minute round system is established from our experience and it doesn’t give any fighters an advantage — ground fighter versus standing fighter or any other disciplined fighters. So we think that the round system that can take the most advantage of strategy of fighting. So, for instance, if we come to the U.S. and the United States imposes five three-minute rounds we will follow, of course, in order for us to come to the U.S. But in Japan, we are not going to change 10-5-5 minute rounds because we believe that round system is perfect. And if you see worldwide environment then unless a much, much bigger organization like the Olympics or World Cup or something, then if they impose five-minute rounds then that is the time that we will maybe consider [change]. When it comes to the unified rules all over the world — of course American people look at America most — we see much more global standpoint. So today’s meeting was only for California but we have a bigger picture, which is worldwide. For instance we have made an alliance with FILA organization and they are the ruling [body] for martial arts in the Olympics. So once mixed martial arts is adopted in the Olympic games, not just the United States people, but people from Japan and Brazil and all over world will come together and finalize the rules, which may not necessarily be Unified Rules sanctioned by the U.S. states.

Gross: That’s a very interesting concept: mixed martial arts in the Olympics. How close is that to becoming reality?

Sakakibara: We don’t believe that it’s going to happen anytime soon. If you only think of the Unified Rules or PRIDE rules or UFC rules, it’s going to be the rule adopted by the Olympic games under the mixed martial arts games. FILA has been working on bringing Pankration tournament in the Olympics. They’re working on that. But even the boxing has been adopted in the Olympics but they wear headgear. And they have a much, much longer history of fighting. Mixed martial arts [history is] much, much less. So some time in the very far future, maybe the PRIDE or UFC rules will be seen in Olympics. But if you’re talking about soon, it will be much more rules — far from the PRIDE or UFC rules. And maybe no striking, just grappling. We really strongly believe that we should, as promoter of PRIDE, and also the UFC — those are the top two promotions in the world — should think about being in the Olympic games maybe 20 years from now or 50 years from now. So they should always think about the goal. Olympics started as fighting 2000 years ago, so it takes a long time. If they don't think about the future — 50 or 100 years from now — nothing is going to be accomplished.