The Doggy Bag

With the announcement of Hiroyuki Takaya rematching Bibiano Fernandes for the Dream featherweight title, what do you think about the direction of K-1 Dynamite this year? They say that they're looking to make it more about MMA, with most of the card being Dream fighters, instead of using so many K-1 and freakshow fighters of the past. Does this indicate that even if MMA isn't as popular as it was, that the kind of MMA in Japan is changing? It seems interesting that they'd want to base almost the whole Dynamite show around MMA -- good MMA, even -- if they didn't think the audience would be responsive.
-- Adam from Milton Keynes

Tony Loiseleur, Japanese correspondent: While I don’t want this to sound like a cop-out, there isn’t a better answer that I can give other than “we’ll have to wait and see.” One of the most difficult things to do is to accurately forecast what any major Japanese promotion will do next, regardless of what they may claim at a press conference. As such, I’m skeptical that we’ll see any radical changes to this year’s Dynamite product.

First of all, focusing this year’s Dynamite on MMA rather than K-1 bouts does not necessarily mean that there won’t be any K-1 bouts. Nor does it mean that MMA is becoming more popular as all attraction to kakutogi still comes down to the names that will be competing.

My initial reaction to Dream event producer Keiichi Sasahara’s motivations behind the scheduling of a Fernandes-Takaya featherweight title rematch and their intended focus on more serious bouts for Dynamite 2010 was one of pleasant surprise. But, I also found it curious that in saying as much, he was appealing to a much smaller demographic in fight fans and pundits, rather than the mainstream Japanese audience.

One thing that cannot be stressed enough is that Dec. 31 is the most important television-watching day for the Japanese. People are generally gathered at home with their families for New Year’s Eve, partaking in a large feast of seasonal foods while flipping the channels between comedy variety shows, fighting events such as Dynamite, and the musical contest-slash-ratings juggernaut, the Red and White Song Battle.

With FEG programming doing mediocre ratings -- resulting in the mounting dissatisfaction of their television partner, the Tokyo Broadcasting System -- one would think that it’s incumbent on Dynamite to perform well this year to ensure that K-1 and Dream have a home on Japanese network television in 2011. TBS themselves also don’t want to lose the high-stakes ratings war on Dec. 31 if they have anything to say about it, and thus will have a big hand in shaping this card, regardless of what Dream EP Sasahara claims about its new “serious MMA” direction.

For these reasons, I think it would be unwise to count out the possibility of spectacle bouts for New Year’s Eve. While the Fernandes-Takaya rematch more than satisfies serious fans like us, it’s barely a blip on the radar of everyday Japanese viewers who will likely flip channels to something more casually appealing when the championship rematch airs.

Though this appeal to serious MMA fans is not exactly a formula for ratings success, it should be noted that only one fight has been announced so far on this twelve to thirteen fight bill. While Dream hasn’t always been the best at announcing fights well in advance of a card, the delay we’ll see for Dynamite 2010’s fight announcements will have more of a tactical reason behind them.

Depending on what popular J-Pop and enka artists are announced and scheduled for the Red and White Song Battle, TBS and FEG will have to work together to strategically announce and schedule bouts for their Dynamite telecast -- thus the reason why Dynamite airs on a slight tape-delay on Japanese TV. Whether using popular bouts to counter-program or putting fights of little appeal up against known ratings killers from other programs and channels, bout announcement and scheduling must be done in a way to effectively garner Dynamite the most ratings.

At this point, we still have no way of knowing whether Dynamite will shape up the way Dream EP Sasahara has claimed it will, but we should be skeptical that FEG and TBS would abandon the chase for mainstream viewers on such an important day for television viewing. All FEG programming could use a ratings boost these days -- particularly so for their year-end effort -- and thus, we’ll have to wait and see whom FEG and TBS will tab for Dynamite and just how exactly they’ll rationalize each bout as having serious implications in the greater scheme of fight sport. However it turns out though, expect FEG and TBS to go all out and put on a great show, as they really have no other choice for New Year’s Eve.