Rizin boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara says new hero needed...

Nobuyuki Sakakibara is right they need new strars to root for, and they just need new MMA fighters with decent records. . Deep/Jewels was scraping the bottom of the barrow getting those "Date" chicks to fight and now the "Date" girls that were slightly sucessful have gone to try Road FC. Now Deep/Jewel has done the desprate act of teaming with WSOF-Gobal. Tournements will bring new fighters/stars, and nothing wrong with bringing in stars from other fields to bring their fame to MMA. Yes this is money well spent on his part, to help the sport and his country.
 
It's true what Sakakibara says. There are only two core ingredients that're really needed for a sport to have success in a region. You need a good promotion-- ideally with some initial connections to get some hype around it and people interested-- and a fighter (or fighters) to market and spearhead the promotion.
Pride was built around pro wrestlers, but it launched itself into the higher echelons it reached with Sakuraba, and fighters like Gomi, Wanderlei and Yoshida helped 'em stay up there.
The UFC in the SEG days had Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, then in the early Zuffa days was living and dying with Tito Ortiz and it built itself anew with Chuck Liddell's ascent, and fighters like Georges St-Pierre and Brock Lesnar kept 'em up there.
Strikeforce was built around Cung Le and then had Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson when Cung Le started to drop off.
Bellator had Eddie Alvarez then Michael Chandler.
ONE had- and still has Eduard Folayang and Peter Davis, then they got Aoki and Kevin Belingon, and now they've got Angela Lee and Dejdamrong and a slough of others.
Even the WSOF has Marlon Moraes and Gaethje; if they didn't have Gaethje, they'd probably have gone under by now.
If RIZIN got someone like Kyoji, or someone with the J-POP-esque good looks, exciting fighting style, streak of solid victories and championship accolades of Takeru, someone like Aoki without the polarizing public perception and the tendency to have 20(+)-minute grapple-fucking decision victories, or even if they could just get their hands on one of the successful, older Japanese gentlemen and have 'em win a good amount of fights and be happy with the company, or Yashabo, the good-looking exciting, explosive knockout artist with the likable personality that he is, they'd have their guy they could use as the promotion's star. RENA could end up being that person, but Japan's got the kind of understatedly-sexist history that kind of makes 'em need a man to be their hero.
I think they wanted Motoya to be that guy, at least in part, but the unofficial knockout loss (and the fact that he missed weight- and got the fight scrapped on the last RIZIN card) kind of took those plans back a step.
If they can get Kato to fight on more of their cards and win, he could end up being their guy.

mime said:
I think they should focus on Japan and create a Japanese fighter only tournament to get things started with that. Worry abut big foreign names later when they can afford to give them suitcases of money.
Click to expand...

They need the big foreign names to get sponsors on board and people interested in the promotion. When you go completely grass-roots to create fighters, you don't end up being a big promotion. You end up as a feeder league.

milk man said:
Actually this is NOT true. PRIDE did not create mainstream stars, only USED stars from K1 and pro-wrestling. You are VERY mistaken.

K1 and HERO'S was much better at creating stars: Kid, Genki, Tokoro, Miyata, and U.N.O....these were real stars.

Like most ppl here, you have poor understanding of kakutougi boom and PRIDE. Only hardcore westerner weebs think PRIDE fighters were 'huge star'
Click to expand...

Technically, with the exception of the Olympians and the crossover kickboxing and UFC guys, all Pride and HERO's really did was take the top guys from Shooto, Pancrase and ZST and give 'em a big platform.
Gomi, Hansen, Kid Yamamoto, Tokoro, Misaki, JZ, Uno, Kawajiri, Sakurai, and guys like Remigijus, Takaya, Gono, Shaolin, Ishida... all guys from Pancrase, Shooto or ZST. A lot of whom were already the most popular Shooto or et cetera guys when they joined. Kid Yamamoto was a really popular fighter before he joined K-1.
 
They need a psycho japanese guy with looks and personality that has good work ethic for training, pump him full of steroids to give him extra power and cardio
 
eseseses681 said:
Technically, with the exception of the Olympians and the crossover kickboxing and UFC guys, all Pride and HERO's really did was take the top guys from Shooto, Pancrase and ZST and give 'em a big platform.
Gomi, Hansen, Kid Yamamoto, Tokoro, Misaki, JZ, Uno, Kawajiri, Sakurai, and guys like Remigijus, Takaya, Gono, Shaolin, Ishida... all guys from Pancrase, Shooto or ZST. A lot of whom were already the most popular Shooto or et cetera guys when they joined. Kid Yamamoto was a really popular fighter before he joined K-1.
Click to expand...
pride never put any of those guys on their main cards they were all stuck in their version of wec except once or two fight on a nye

none of those guys got to be as famous as any of the guys milkman mentioned
 
Takada needs to come out of retirement. The fans demand it!

 
takdada vs bob sapp would be good at this point
 
eseseses681 said:
It's true what Sakakibara says. There are only two core ingredients that're really needed for a sport to have success in a region. You need a good promotion-- ideally with some initial connections to get some hype around it and people interested-- and a fighter (or fighters) to market and spearhead the promotion.
Pride was built around pro wrestlers, but it launched itself into the higher echelons it reached with Sakuraba, and fighters like Gomi, Wanderlei and Yoshida helped 'em stay up there.
The UFC in the SEG days had Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, then in the early Zuffa days was living and dying with Tito Ortiz and it built itself anew with Chuck Liddell's ascent, and fighters like Georges St-Pierre and Brock Lesnar kept 'em up there.
Strikeforce was built around Cung Le and then had Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson when Cung Le started to drop off.
Bellator had Eddie Alvarez then Michael Chandler.
ONE had- and still has Eduard Folayang and Peter Davis, then they got Aoki and Kevin Belingon, and now they've got Angela Lee and Dejdamrong and a slough of others.
Even the WSOF has Marlon Moraes and Gaethje; if they didn't have Gaethje, they'd probably have gone under by now.
If RIZIN got someone like Kyoji, or someone with the J-POP-esque good looks, exciting fighting style, streak of solid victories and championship accolades of Takeru, someone like Aoki without the polarizing public perception and the tendency to have 20(+)-minute grapple-fucking decision victories, or even if they could just get their hands on one of the successful, older Japanese gentlemen and have 'em win a good amount of fights and be happy with the company, or Yashabo, the good-looking exciting, explosive knockout artist with the likable personality that he is, they'd have their guy they could use as the promotion's star. RENA could end up being that person, but Japan's got the kind of understatedly-sexist history that kind of makes 'em need a man to be their hero.
I think they wanted Motoya to be that guy, at least in part, but the unofficial knockout loss (and the fact that he missed weight- and got the fight scrapped on the last RIZIN card) kind of took those plans back a step.
If they can get Kato to fight on more of their cards and win, he could end up being their guy.



They need the big foreign names to get sponsors on board and people interested in the promotion. When you go completely grass-roots to create fighters, you don't end up being a big promotion. You end up as a feeder league.



Technically, with the exception of the Olympians and the crossover kickboxing and UFC guys, all Pride and HERO's really did was take the top guys from Shooto, Pancrase and ZST and give 'em a big platform.
Gomi, Hansen, Kid Yamamoto, Tokoro, Misaki, JZ, Uno, Kawajiri, Sakurai, and guys like Remigijus, Takaya, Gono, Shaolin, Ishida... all guys from Pancrase, Shooto or ZST. A lot of whom were already the most popular Shooto or et cetera guys when they joined. Kid Yamamoto was a really popular fighter before he joined K-1.
Click to expand...
You think Shooto and ZST fighters were famous???

K1 was big during boom era.

Everyone knew the name of "K1." Then K1 does mma with HERO'S, this used K1 platform to make stars. So Kid became famous bc of K1 promotion, handsome, sexy wife, and famous father. Also bad boy idol image (THC).

You think Shooto fighters are like Liam Hemsworth, ask anyone who is not weeb "hey, you like Rumina Sato?" They will think you are crazy.

Sherdog weebs think Gomi/Kawajiri fight was big news. LOL nobody knows them, they are Bushido fighters. Genki/Kid fight was news bc sexy fighters and bad boy vs nice guy, like Tyga had UFC fight with Rob Kardashian.

Ppl knew brand name PRIDE but not the fighters. Ask a meathead "hey man, you like UFC? Wow so you have a Sean Sherk blanket???" It's the same situation.

Weebs care more about Japanese culture than mainstream fans. Please learn more...
 
tinobar said:
takdada vs bob sapp would be good at this point
Click to expand...
Yes this would be good, ppl would watch, Fuji TV would big make deal.

Same as Brock fight with Jose Canseco. Even my grandma would watch this fight.
 
They need to get the top Japanese guys in each division and work them up against higher and higher opponents. For instance Mizuno is the top LHW, have him fight someone like Ryan Spann from Legacy (Rizin has a relationship with them). Also get some pro-wrestling guys to work with them on personality.
 
milk man said:
Sherdog weebs think Gomi/Kawajiri fight was big news. LOL nobody knows them, they are Bushido fighters. Genki/Kid fight was news bc sexy fighters and bad boy vs nice guy, like Tyga had UFC fight with Rob Kardashian.
Click to expand...

This. Genki vs KID was 50x the fight that Gomi vs Kawajiri/Sakurai ever was. These hipster fans who've latched onto PRIDE love after it died have some weird revisionist history goggles going on
 
Well Genki doesn't fight anymore so they can't get him but once Kid is done with his UFC contract (He fought on Kyokugen NYE 2015-2016 and did great ratings)...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,255,792
Messages
56,739,022
Members
175,382
Latest member
LaPalmaJoa

Share this page

Back
Top