The UFC is looking to head to Japan

News has come out about a proposed UFC card to be held in the land of the rising sun, the country that was home to the now defunct Pride organization, Japan.

Fighter’s Only has a story detailing a plan which would include UFC middleweight Yohihiro Akiyama taking on the winner of the Michael Bisping-Wanderlei Silva bout, which will take place in less than two weeks in Australia.

Akiyama was a big star in Japan and is of Japenese-Korean descent. “Sexiyama” starred in the K-1 organization, and had a two fight stint with Dream.

If the UFC has its way, the best possible scenario would be for Silva to win, there may not be a more revered fighter in Japan than “The Axe Murderer”

Silva ruled the Pride middleweight division with an iron fist holding the division championship for over five years.

If the UFC is successful in holding a show in Japan some other fighters who would have to be considered for the event would be former Pride superstars Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, newly signed lightweight Takanori Gomi, the Nogueira brothers, and of course Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

In the past, Dana White has been very vocal about the difficulties he has encountered when dealing with the Japanese.

The UFC purchased Pride from Dream Stage Entertainment with the intention of running both organizations separately but having Super Bowl like cards a few times per year.

One of the main reasons Pride failed was the lack of a television contract, which some say was due to the influence of the Yakuza, the Japanese form of organized crime.

Staging a show in Japan would be a huge coup for Zuffa, when Pride was in its heyday, they were drawing crowds of well over 50,000 fans.

This story comes on the heels of a weekly one hour series airing on Friday nights on Spike which shows some of the best fights in the history of Pride.

It was also a few short weeks ago that White proclaimed that while it may be a long shot, “anything could happen” when asked if there was a Pride revival in the works.