It’s easy to look at M-1 Global and World Victory Road and call this a rise for the Japanese market. After all, the ability to keep many of the Japanese fanbase’s favorite fighters (Fedor, Barnett, Yoshida, Gomi, and so on) in Japan is a huge win for the Japanese market, because though we’re all aware that K-1 will continue to be the best kickboxing organization on the planet, their MMA events are a long way from challenging the Goliath of the sport.
Still, M-1 and Victory Road present a serious problem for the Japanese market, because they seem to be splitting fighters. Fedor, Monson and a handful of other great guys have signed with M-1, while Barnett, Yoshida and the up-and-coming phenom Roger Gracie are signed to WVR. It greatly decreases the chances of a great superfight card that many have been speculating about since the Pride buyout. We figured the end of the crazy freakshow that Pride fights sometimes turned into (like Zuluzihno vs. Butterbean) could only be a good thing. That said, we were a bit too quick to look on the bright side.
It seems that Zuffa shot down the mother bear, and now we’re going to have to see the offspring fight to the death to establish themselves as dominant.
There is some hope, as Japanese organizations have been known to cooperate from time to time and pool contracts to give the fans what they want, (damn, I wish that the UFC would take a page out of that book some days) and the buyout has only increased the frequency of these kinds of deals, but has seriously damaged the quality.
I’d personally like to see one of these two blooming powerhouses buy out the other, so that we could see all of the world class contracts get pooled together in one organization, but I don’t think that’s likely, given that the financial situations of both organizations are in their beginning stages.
The promise of Josh Barnett vs. Fedor Emelianenko may be gone, and so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for Randy Couture to sign with M-1. It wasn’t too long ago, before Zuffa sent the Pride boys a big fat check, when Barnett vs. Emelianenko was imminent, and shortly after that (when the buyout came), Couture vs. Fedor was on our doorstep. Or at least that’s what we thought.
Oh well, I guess it’s true what the Rolling Stones say; “you can’t always get what you want.”
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