This morning, a massive earthquake hit Japan, with the death toll not being confirmed but definitely in the thousands, and hundreds more displaced due to the massive tsunami that hit the coast just a few hours later....
Over here, however, while I sat in my seat and turned my computer this morning, my attention was solely focused on another story to come out of Japan : Promotion World Victory Road has announced their main sponsor, Don Quiotes Inc., has pulled out of their deal with WVR, effectively putting the Sengoku Raiden Championship on thin ice, according to MMAJunkie.
This comes on the heels of a story published on MMA Fanhouse in January, where rival Japanese promotion DREAM's parent company, Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG) 's President, Sadaharu Tanikawa stated that "the current course" of his company is that it would "die", after having said a 3 month hiatus was necessary in December following their "Dynamite!" card last New year's eve.
Having read that news, It finally hit me : Japanese MMA, as we know it, is dead.
In some ways, it has been dead since the UFC bought out the old PRIDE Fighting Championship in 2007. When that happened it effectively gave the Japanese an uphill climb : trying to establish new stars, maintain a fan base and put on top notch events -- all the while, when Zuffa effectively stripped them of their talent.
That event, and that alone, effectively crippled to what had been up until that point, the mecca of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Everywhere has a starting point : For Hockey, its the cold ponds of North America. For Soccer (or Football), the pitches of England. MMA may be based on the Ancient Greek sport of "Pankration"... but its Japan where it grew from its infancy into a phenomenon.
It all started with the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF-i), where pro wrestling went from "physical theatre" to legitimate sport. Granted, these were still staged matches, but from there we got Pancrase, where the fights were the first Pro Wrestling matches in close to 100 years to not be staged, starting in 1993, the same year the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was founded.
Throughout the mid to late 90s and early part of this century, UFC, while it had recovered from its down days, was still only the #2 promotion in the world. The #1 was still in Japan, in the form of PRIDE. Most MMA fans these days, whether they came from the first "Ultimate Fighter" or when Brock Lesnar joined the fray, won't remember.
They won't remember one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the sport, when Mark Coleman emerged from a 3 year retirement to win the Pride Open Weight Grand Prix in 2000. They'll remember Coleman as a 44 year old man who outstayed his welcome. Nor will they remember Wanderlei Silva as the top Light Heavyweight in the world; They'll remember him as a gatekeeper who had to cut to 185 to keep relevant. They know Quinton Jackson as a former UFC champion, but they probably don't know he actually got knocked out by Silva on 2 occasions. They know Anderson Silva due to his 14 fight win streak and subsequent Pound for Pound status; but they probably don't remember his most embarrassing defeat, at the hands of a Ryo Chonnan flying heel hook.
It wasn't just the fighters. There was always something different about Japanese cards; From that crazy woman screaming fighters names at the top of her lungs to the guys wearing sumo thongs beating giant drums, you always got something that made it stand out. Guys like Bob Sapp and Giant Silva, who otherwise would be irrelevant low-tier fighters who would never get a sniff of the big time, became cult icons. Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama probably staged what made Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin's showdown on the "Ultimate Finale" look like a little school girl fight, when they waged an 8 minute war at "Pride 21" in 2002, that left the crowd on their feet, screaming for more. From the first card to the last of the year, every card had the intensity of a Super Bowl. It had action. comedy. drama. and a hell of a lot of fisticuffs. I yearned for the day I'd get the chance to fly to Japan one New Year's Eve, to take it all in.
Sadly, I'll never get that chance. Japanese MMA will still be around, but with the subsequent economic downturn of 2008 that left it on life support, minor promotions like Pancrase and Shooto are even struggling. And they will never reach the heights that Pride reached. It is sad, really.
So farewell, to the spectacle. The freak shows. The limitless action and the splendor. I almost feel like a member of my family has passed.
Until Next time, fight fans.
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