K-1 MAX Ratings Breakdown; Unexpected Success

by Dave Walsh on Mar 29, 2010 9:05 PM EDT in K-1 MAX News

Kazuhisa Watanabe and DJ Taiki's war was the most-watched fight at the K-1 MAX Japan tournament, via SportsNavi

While there was little to no press coverage of Yuichiro Nagashima's K-1 MAX Japan tournament victory, the television ratings were still well within the acceptable range while going against a world figure skating competition and a big Kameda fight. The Kameda fight did around 19.9, an average of 22%, which was as expected if not a little low for a boxing match of this caliber. If you don't know, boxing, especially involving the Kameda brothers, is red hot in Japan right now. As always, Japan follows fads in their entertainment (including sports) and boxing happens to be the fad combat sport at the moment, taking the place of Mixed Martial Arts.

K-1, as always, holds strong in their ratings, especially for a K-1 MAX show not featuring Masato. The average number was 10.7 which falls some place in the ballpark of 10%, which is down a bit, but Tanigawa mentioned that it was expected to be down a bit, but these numbers were great under the circumstances.

So, as I'm sure everybody is waiting for, what sort of surprise came about in this show? The highest rated bout was the fight between Kazuhisa Watanabe and DJ Taiki, peeking at 14.7%. Those numbers are fantastic, and while not Masato numbers, means big things for DJ Taiki, the DREAM fighter who pulled off the win over Watanabe in what was easily the most publicized bout of the show with Petrosyan and Kohi dropping out.

SBN coverage of K-1 MAX Japan Tournament

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It’s actually a minor improvement compared to last year, which is phenomenal considering all the doomsday atmosphere before the event with everyone claiming that Figureskating was going to bomb MAX into cancellation.

Don’t agree with you on the “well done dj” point. His was likely the most watched fight for the same reason Zimmerman vs Bonjasky was last year. Most of the other fights ended in quick knockouts. Both dj and Watanabe have expressed disappointment about their performance and apologized to the fans, as well they should. Dj, also, called DREAM fighter Takaya “Takatani” (probably on purpose), so I’m looking forward to the inevitable Takaya freaking out news that’s bound to emerge.