PRIDE Loses TV Deal

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

In what is unquestionably the biggest news event of the year, Fuji TV has canceled their TV deal with PRIDE. The last Bushido with the Tournament will not air.

 

This extends to every show PRIDE does, AND Hustle. I've heard rumors that pro-wrestling group Zero One MAX will be affected too due to being funded in part by DSE.

 

http://www.fightopinion.com/2006/06/05/fuj...-pride-for-good

 

This is HUGE. Even PRIDE's American PPV deal ran through Fuji. Fuji also funded a great deal of their shows.

 

PRIDE's basicly dead in the water now. No TV company is going to give them a deal with all the Yakuza Scandal around them. The ramifications of this could be incredible.

 

I figured it MIGHT be worth a thread itself.

[Guest Brian]

I think someone will pick them up, though maybe not initially, they have a good deal of money to work with.

 

But no. NOT HUSTLE!

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Problem is, PRIDE was funded by Fuji, like all Pro-wrestling/MMA groups are in Japan. PRIDE has to find someone that's willing to pay the costs that Fuji was covering.

 

Right now, there are alllll kinds of insane rumors going on about what's going to happen in DSE including Sakikbara being arrested and other rumors.

 

This is MAAAAAAAAASSSSSSIVE.

[Guest Brian]

Sakikbara rumors have been ongoing for quite a while. PRIDE has quite a bit of money to poerate with and if this blows over in a reasonable amount of time, they will not have too much problems finding another deal.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Somewhere Dana White is showing off that really smug, insecure grin he's got.

[Lei Tong 0]

See, the Fertittas know well enough to never talk about "this thing."

[Damaramu 0]

What Yakuza scandal? Sorry I don't keep up with PRIDE but this sounds interesting.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Perhaps clicking on the link provided will illuminate you?

[Damaramu 0]

Ah. I thought it was just about the cancelled TV deal. Not the scandal.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Basicly, over the last few months it's been revealed that PRIDE is heavily into the Yakuza. To the extent that possibly high ranking people within PRIDE are in the Yakuza. Not good.

 

It's been building for months, and this is the culmination. Sakuraba left PRIDE over this.

 

They've also lost other TV deals including Tokai, and SkyPerfect. They have nothing.

 

For anyone who thinks this is like when UFC got kicked off PPV: it's not. PRIDE cannot exist in it's current form without the money paid by the Japanese TV companies. That's the big difference, in that Japanese TV works in that they'll pay you to be on their station aslong as you get the ratings. Thats why no Japanese promotion has ever worked in the States significantly, because the TV/PPV situations are so vastly different.

 

PRIDE/DSE has nothing now. Their stubbornly saying their going to keep going ahead, but inless they get a TV deal immediately which is highly unlikely given how big this is (And this IS big. I dunno why more MMA sites aren't talking about it. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest stories in Japan). Cuts are going to be made immediately I'd assume to keep them alive.

 

Gonna be VERY interesting to see where the bigger names end up.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Wasn't PRIDE on the brink of destruction around the time Morishita committed suicide? I recall doom and gloom and the threat of PRIDE folding during that period, and they pretty much just restructured and nothing really happened.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

That brings up another point.

 

Why did he commit suicide? It hasn't been that long ago, and then this came about.

 

My friend made a good point. PRIDE began with more resources then any promotion in history. They ran the first show in the Tokyo Dome with it's huuuuge costs. They brought in Rickson Gracie to fight Nobuhiko Takada, one of the biggest names in Japanese Pro-Wrestling. They brought in every fighter they could.

 

All with no shows before, no proven credibility. Has the Yakuza been in PRIDE THAT long? Which brings us back to the Morishita suicide. Maybe he had a debt he couldn't pay back.

[Guest Steviec2k3]

Wasn't PRIDE on the brink of destruction around the time Morishita committed suicide? I recall doom and gloom and the threat of PRIDE folding during that period, and they pretty much just restructured and nothing really happened.

 

With all due respect to Morishita's death, this is a much bigger blow to DSE itself. Simply restructuring and appointing a new President isn't going to make this problem go away. It's been revealed that PRIDE has DEEP connections to the Yakuza. The supposed "real boss of PRIDE" is rumored to be a head capo in the Yakuza. Sakakibara himself is supposedly involved with the Yakuza.

 

Like I said, this isn't a problem that's going away.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

http://fightopinion.com/forum/index.php?topic=118.0

 

This isn't the first time PRIDE has been said to be close to death, I got myself all worried a few years ago around the time Morishita died, so I won't bother with it until PRIDE is officially dead and not coming back. And after that, I will just have to watch HEROS and SHOOTO. And odds are, a seed from PRIDE will grow soon after its death, as history tends to show.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

I fail to see where that article says PRIDE is dead. More or less, it says PRIDE's going to continue on shaky ground, which they have been.

 

Zach was pretty much spot on, things have been really shaky for PRIDE the last few years. He never outright says PRIDE is dying, but instead says that weird things are going on. PRIDE hasn't been able to counter K-1 effectively, they've lost stars, they've added divisions, new stars. All that since then. It hasn't been straight forward, or headstrong at all.

 

When you think about how much of all this, since PRIDE's inception could be Yakuza influenced, it's staggering. The scary thing is, it COULD be that way.

[Guest Steviec2k3]

The thing is, PRIDE may not die. PRIDE very well could down-size into a model like DEEP... However, without the TV money, and without the gate money, there is absolutely no way PRIDE could afford even half the pay roll it has for its fighters.

 

There is just no possible way. Even with big sponsors behind the show, they still couldn't afford the demanding salaries of Naoya Ogawa and Hidehiko Yoshida. Once K-1 decides to be the shark to PRIDE's bleeding corpse and starts to throw big money at their Japanese stars (Just as they did with Sakuraba), it'll truly be the end of PRIDE as we know it.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I fail to see where that article says PRIDE is dead.

 

This is odd given what you named this thread.

 

Not having Yoshida vs. Ogawa on the card and being DEEP-like are two very different ends of the spectrum. PRIDE makes huge gates. The UFC makes huge gates and they have half the attendance that PRIDE does, and PRIDE prices almost as insanely as the UFC does. I imagine they will still be able to afford quality talent if they do decide to run shows.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

First off, two totally different things. The article you posted didn't say PRIDE was dying seeing how it was made several years ago. Furthermore, my thread title does NOT say PRIDE is dying. It says the end MAY be here, May being a suggestive word with two possibilities. May not, May be. I never said PRIDE was dead. Nor dying. I said the end may be here. Significant difference.

 

Yes, there is a huge difference between DEEP and PRIDE. However, you are completely missing what we have been saying. PRIDE is/was funded by TV Companies, atleast towards their Production which is not a small thing. Between the maintainence of their sets, to their fireworks, to their setup, to their friggin CGI lightning. It all costs huge amounts of money. The money they'd get from TV deals, and their PPV broadcasts are gone. Completely. Theres no more funding there.

 

Also figure in that DSE is refusing to let HUSTLE die, and instead are going ahead with their Saitama Super Arena show, which will probably fail to sell out. HUSTLE only stayed alive as long as it has due to TV. Without it, it's a HUUUUGE drain on DSE's resources.

 

Even IF you cut out Hustle, DSE still has a gigantic roster easily the biggest contracted set of fighters in the history of MMA. It drains them from every show they run, regardless of size or amount of people inside the building. DSE's going to notice that they may have made 50% pure profit before, they'll make MAYBE 15% due to the increased costs on everything within their structure as a company. If that.

 

No one has said PRIDE is dead. Or dying. We've been saying that there are significant things pointing them towards destruction. We can't read the future, so we've never made that leap.

[Guest Steviec2k3]

I fail to see where that article says PRIDE is dead.

 

This is odd given what you named this thread.

 

Not having Yoshida vs. Ogawa on the card and being DEEP-like are two very different ends of the spectrum. PRIDE makes huge gates. The UFC makes huge gates and they have half the attendance that PRIDE does, and PRIDE prices almost as insanely as the UFC does. I imagine they will still be able to afford quality talent if they do decide to run shows.

 

There is a difference between PRIDE's roster and a "quality talent" roster. PRIDE arguably has the most in depth talent roster on the planet. Not even UFC's strongest division comes close to anything PRIDE has at the moment. K-1's strongest suite if their Middle(Light)weight division, and they have NOTHING beyond Kid, Sudo, and arguably Kultar Gill and Uno.

 

DEEP might have some nice technical fighters. But they don't have stars, aside from the occasional B-Level MMA draw like Tamura and Minowa.

 

At the most, they might be able to keep maybe ONE of their Japanese draws... MAYBE. And I sincerely doubt that either of them will be Ogawa or Yoshida. Maybe they could keep Gomi. But that's one name in a division that doesn't even draw well in PRIDE.

 

The Cro-Cops, the Fedors, the Silvas, etc... They will not be with a down-graded PRIDE. They will be off else-where, whether it's UFC (Unlikely) or K-1, making big money while PRIDE is struggling to sell out Yoyogi National Gymnasium.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Oh jesus fuck, you could have easily written "PRIDE is in Trouble", but instead you wrote, "The end is perhaps here", which is significantly more doom & gloomy. No matter how you tried to qualify it, the emphasis isn't on "perhaps" with a comment like that. Words like "End" and "Dead" are melodramatic and aren't really used if you are "waiting to see what happens" and showing restraint. You can position it all you want, ("there are significant things pointing them towards destruction" is one of the more ridiculous spins for "The end is perhaps here" that I could think of) please try to tell me you weren't being alarmist and apocalyptic in your first post..

 

PRIDE makes millions and millions and millions from their gates. They have relatively close prices to the UFC from what I have seen, and they draw way more fans, and the UFC makes sick dough in the live gates, upwards to $4 million. Yes, PRIDE makes most of their money from television as the TV companies tend to foot the bill on the grand expenses, but that's not to say that they are "dead in the water" as they clearly have other revenue streams that provides them more than enough to maintain a certain lifestyle, if you will. It certainly won't be as "big" as before, but it won't be at DEEP levels, and it will be enough to afford the stars they need. You're acting like they have nowhere else to make money when they clearly do. PRIDE (or rather, DSE) folding would be because of internal reasons and perhaps even a tactical move than because of a lack of money.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

If the W.Silva goes anywhere, it's going to be with the UFC. He's got a huge pay day waiting for him with Chuck Liddell.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I think the Rampage-Effect B would hurt the probabilities of Silva in the UFC as well.

 

(The Rampage-Effect B being Dana not seeing the point in spending lots of money on a guy who will not be the name draw ala Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture. Rampage-Effect A is the decline of a fighter after finding religion)

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Like Stevie said, K-1 will be the benefactor of PRIDE potentially being more frugal. That said, I can't imagine a start-up company NOT coming up to take advantage of an excess of talent (in a TNA-esque kinda way, only -you know- bigger and better) if PRIDE were to go under.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

The difference with Rampage and Silva is that you set Silva up with a couple of cans and he can become the draw. He's worth the investment since he's still worth a shit, and can be a champ.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

In that case, what you are looking at is an undercard fighter earning probably in the ballpark of $250,000 per fight (just in build) and making the company very little in return for the first few fights. Too risky in regards to the real money for the potential reward. And Rampage could at least speak English...

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

By that logic the UFC could never hire a big star outside of their promotion.

[Guest Brian]

By that logic the UFC could never hire a big star outside of their promotion.

 

It's not that they never should, it's just that they shouldn't do itif the cost benefit isn't there. There's a ton of factors you have to analyze, and what you have to figure is how you can build up Rampage properly while getting their money's worth. Should they just shove Rampage in with no build, and risk having Chuck go down (or Rampage for that matter, is he worth it after losing)? Should they feed him lower level guys and in lower level matches to build him up at such a price? Horn ended up being worth it because he came with a low price tag.

[Guest Brian]

From Zach's latest update:

 

Sankei Sports has an article talking about DSE management putting on “a bullish front,” trying to show strength in public. Management is talking big, claiming that they are scheduled to continue running shows all the way up until the November 5th Yokohama Arena show (Bushido - Welterweight GP tournament finals). DSE boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara is planning for a Thursday press conference in which it is expected that he will have several Japanese fighters with him to try to put on a brave face. The Sankei Sports article quotes former New Japan boss Seiji Sakaguchi, with him stating that he is worried about the future of the Kakutougi (Fight) world now that Fuji TV has canceled PRIDE’s contract. In other words, he’s doubtful about the company’s future.

 

Sports Nippon reports that SkyPerfecTV, the satellite PPV company that PRIDE & Hustle events air on, is considering cutting ties with DSE. It should be noted that the Fuji-Sankei group owns a stake in SkyPerfecTV, making the PPV situation an ominous one at best. The report also states that the DSE office is getting flooded with over 300 calls by fans, asking about whether or not there will be shows in the future. In a related post online, Gryphon breaks down the numbers of PRIDE & Hustle shows on SkyPerfecTV. (In summary - without Fuji TV’s support, DSE is devastated. Without TV support and PPV support, the company is crippled.)

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Anderson was worth it too, but in my opinion it's not worth spending 250G per fight to build up a guy over a few fights. They have to take top fighters that aren't necessarily huge stars elsewhere. Anything else is gonna be a loss 95% of the time.

[AboveAverage484 0]

We should know tomorrow morning as there is a press conference concerning this as well as the next round matchups for the OWGP