Dynamite!! 2009 and the Future of the Fight Game in Japan

A lot has been said about Dynamite!! 2009 and we are counting down the hours until Dynamite!! kicks off live on HDNet and around the world. The press conference yesterday was more of the same, you'd think, except for the fact that it drew an astonishing 9,000 fans to pump up and cheer on all of the fighters. Think about that, 9,000 is just shy of half of the fans that attended last year's Dynamite!! card. For a market that has been proclaimed a dying market, things are looking far better for the fight scene in Japan than they were last year. Want to know why? TBS, the main sponsor and network airing Dynamite!! 2009 did not put a cap on the show like they did last year. Last year TBS only aired four hours of the event, while the entire event was available on tape delay on PPV, which turned into a disaster for FEG. This year? TBS has fully supported FEG and the K-1 Dynamite!! 2009 broadcast will be uninterrupted. Then, take into account that last year they were pushing 25,000 fans in the arena. As much as they will claim that they set that arena up the arena to seat 25,000 fans, they have sold in the ballpark of 40,000 tickets for this event so far, this is not including the possible walk-up to the event.

There is a lot riding on this event, and while it will not smash any sort of record we've seen in the past instances of Dynamite!!, such as 91,000 fans or virtually everybody in Japan watching a freakshow fight, this year's Dynamite!! is different, a lot different. Every Dynamite!! show has focused on freakshow fights, but Dynamite!! 2009 has no freakshow fights, at all. There is no Bob Sapp, there is no Akebono, there is no Bobby Olgun or Hong Man Choi. Instead, the superstars that sold all of these tickets are true fighters, with the main celebrities going into this fight being two Olympic Gold Medal Judokas; Hidehiko Yoshida and Satoshi Ishii. The other marquee fight is the retirement of Japanese K-1 MAX superstar Masato against nemesis Andy Souwer in a five round war! Then you have DREAM's best facing down with Sengoku Raiden Championship's best; featuring "KID" Yamamoto, Shinya Aoki, Kazuo Misaki, Alistair Overeem, Michihiro Omigawa, Tatsuya Kawajiri and more. Even the dreaded SUPER HULK tournament TBS leveraged DREAM into to draw ratings has led to two legitimate fighters battling it out, as Sokoudjou faces off with Minowaman.

Sengoku was started by World Victory Road under the pretense of selling the fights to the fans, not selling the glitz and glamor of the usual K-1 and DREAM shows. Sengoku had a vision for MMA in Japan, and somehow by working with K-1, both companies have sold a show based entirely around fighting to the Japanese audiences. FEG's K-1 and DREAM have been known to be more glitzy and buy into pushing freakshow fights at fans, and while there are some mismatches like Gegard Mousasi vs. Gary Goodridge and Alistair Overeem vs. Kazuyuki Fujita, they could still go either way. By working with World Victory Road, K-1 has presented a strong card that will be entertaining fight fans around the world.

Not to be dramatic, but this could be the revival of the fight game in Japan.