Mixed Martial Arts In Japan: Entertainment Too Brutal For Prime Time?
By billywest • May 8th, 2008 • Category: The Latest
In Japan, sportfighting has recently seen the infamous Kameda Brothers boxing family fade from the spotlight due to Daiki Kameda’s suspension from boxing for misconduct during the Kameda vs. Naito match last October. With this, boxing has lost some popularity here in Japan. However, mixed martial arts fighting contests remain quite popular in the land of the rising sun where fights featuring Kazushi Sakuraba or Masato pull in lots of TV viewers.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about mixed martial arts fighting events since, oftentimes, professional fighters are pitted against TV celebrities like former Sumo champ Akebono or goofball TV comedian Bobby Ologun (if you watch Japanese TV at all, you know this guy). In other fights it seems as if the contestants are wildmen, forsaking skill and training for all-out street-brawl agression. The result is often too brutal to watch. But, I do have to admit that when two skilled combatants square off, it is often quite exciting.
When the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) first became popular in the U.S., the man to beat was Royce (pronounced ‘Hoyce’) Gracie, a highly-skilled Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tactician. He was a 170-lb. grappler who defeated some scary opponents in unbelievable shows of tenacity and skill. He stepped away from mixed martial arts (MMA) for awhile, but re-emerged and showed that he hadn’t lost his edge. Eventually, though, he did prove to be beatable.
Enter, Kazushi Sakuraba.
Sakuraba is considered the greatest Japanese MMA fighter of all time. In one epic 90-min bout with Royce Gracie, Sakuraba defeated Gracie after Gracie’s corner threw in the towel due to a leg injury. The two fought again last year and Gracie was able to defeat Sakuraba. However, throughout Sakuraba’s career, he has defeated several members of the Gracie family and has earned the nickname ‘Gracie Hunter.’
Since tactical fighters like Gracie and Sakuraba rely on wrestling and grappling as their main fighting forms, bouts featuring these fighters are often bloodless and combatants suffer minimal blunt-force trauma. However, this is not true for many of the punching and kicking fighters who are so often featured in MMA contests. Some bouts leave fighters with severely broken noses, dislocated jaws, and deep cuts. Some are taken away on stretchers because they don’t regain consciousness in the ring after a knockout. This is quite often because the knockout came from a flying knee to the chin. Ouch!
Many people dismiss MMA as a serious sport because of things like mismatched contestants in bouts and goofball celebrities or novelty fighters brought in for ratings purposes.
Others hate it because of its potential for extremely violent fights. I’m not really into it for both those reasons. I also think it promotes violence for the sake of violence. I still like boxing even though it has a tarnished image these days, and I’ll probably continue to watch MMA bouts where technical fighters are involved. But, I hope these events are kept away from prime time TV in Japan as much as possible.
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billywest is a resident of South Tokyo and lives on the Toyoko line.
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Interesting article. I don’t care to watch people beat the pulp out of each other but then again I don’t like to watch horror movies either. Real life has enough ‘horror’ in it as it is and I don’t think that violence should to be glamorized on TV. I would be hard pressed to classify MMA as a sport that would even merit TV coverage.
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Too Brutal For Japanese TV?…
Sometimes entertaining, often violent and bloody; Japan’s fascination with mixed martial arts (MMA) sportfighting contest comes into contrast with its otherwise happy-happy kawaii Hello Kitty image. Have you watched MMA? Are you glad when Bobby gets h…
I didn’t know Gracie was still competing.
It is becoming a mainstream sport. UFC in the US is big now and appears to not be just a fad. It is competing directly with boxing.
If you think it is too brutal, then don’t watch it. You can block a channel so your kids can’t watch either.
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A fighter vs. celeb match up is kind of silly. It tells me that the MMA fighters aren’t famous enough (like the UFC) so they have to pull stunts once in a while to bring back the ratings and make some Yen-ola. MMA is great and I love watching it on TV here in Japan. It’s amazing that it’s free to watching instead of like the UFC PPV events. MMA isn’t too brutal for TV, just like the UFC isn’t too brutal. Would it be too graphic for the targeted viewing audience or the people under 14 or 20? Maybe, but it’s the parents who should be monitoring what their children are watching. Is it a cause for problems in society? I say no, not really. You don’t see people doing uppercuts or guillotines on the subway, instead it’s just some skinny sexually suppressed dorky guy touching some girls booty because of other factors in society (*cough* anime *cough* mosaic laws). Boxing is less violent, but it’s more violence for the sake of violence… people just hitting each other round after round after round. MMA is about bringing different skill levels together in the ring and trying to knock somebody out (omg, just like boxing?) or submission (omg, similar to a TKO in boxing?). I can’t wait for the next MMA event.
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By chance, Billy, I just this morning read an article and a blog – both Canadian, of all things – in articulate praise of MMA (although neither might take the Japanese version seriously because of the mismatched celebs you mentioned):
http://www.walrusmagazine.ca/print/2008.05-mixed-martial-arts/
http://blog.fawny.org/2008/05/08/shirtless-fighters/
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tornadoes,
Yeah, Gracie is still around. Unfortunately, however, he sometimes gets matched up with guys like Bobby Ologun (seen the guy in the yellow jacket in the above article), who is a kind of minor celebrity here in Japan; he’s best known for his timely Japanese language foul-ups.
Steve,
Actually, MMA is a sport and the UFC falls into that sport category (I think a founder of UFC coined the term MMA). I agree that when two skilled fighters who are at the same level match up, it’s great to watch; Never a slug fest. I just get a little bummed when it gets shown at 8 or 9 p.m. instead of 10 or later.
I know what you mean about kids mostly being skinny, harmless types here, but the number of youth-related violent crimes is on the rise in Japan. Not saying it’s MMA-exposure-related for sure, but I think MMA is definitely for adults only.
Nagaijin,
Thanks for the link.
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The now dead “Pride” series was a joke and an embarrasment !! U.F.C for all it’s problems is a much better animal…still going through growing pains…but that is to be expected.
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I suppose I’ll never get why MMA and K-1 and the like have increased in popularity. While mainstream sports have some serious issues, competitive fighting is too much of a wild card. You could watch a long, dragged-out, boring fight, or a guy could knock another guy out in 4 seconds (definitely cool, but way too rare) and end the drama. Boxing isn’t much better, but at least the Sweet Science has some serious punching in between all the clutching and holding.
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Dude, TV-news are too brutal for TV. They should broadcast MMA and such, before the news so that people could prepare themselves mentally.
MMA and K-1 are young, and when prize-fighting was young, people couldn’t call it a respectable discipline, now it’s called boxing and is nicknamed the “gentlemen’s fight”.
Give it time and hope that promoters and mass media don’t destroy it.
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I’ll stick to professional wrestling, thank you.
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