FEG Executives

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The state of mixed martial arts in Japan has been questioned amongst keyboard warriors for several years since the fall of the revolutionary Pride FC organization.

Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG) are the leading provider of combat sports in the land of the rising sun—they are the parent company behind the largest kick boxing organization in the world, K-1, as well as DREAM.

It has been apparent for quite some time that financial difficulties have been a big problem for FEG.

Gary Goodridge, Andy Souwer, and current DREAM Bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes are just a few who have stepped up to the plate and told the fight media that they have not been paid for their past performances.

The signs continued to add up when FEG cancelled their DREAM 17 event that was scheduled to take place on October 25 in South Korea—also no dates have been announced for the K-1 MAX events rumoured for 2010.

At this point and time FEG only has two upcoming events—DREAM 16 on September 25 and their annual Dynamite event schedule for New Year's Eve.

Mike Kogan, the United States representative for FEG, conducted an interview with MMAJunkie.

After months of denial on the part of FEG management, Kogan is the first to step up and admit that the organization is in a large hole of financial problems and the future of the company rests on a deal with PUJI Capital.

According to Kogan, PUJI Capital are attempting to provide $230 million for the fight organization, which would allow them to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to fighters and have them back in business for 2011.

For the investors to accumulate the cash total suggested it could take quite some time, and if the deal falls through, well I can let you figure out the outcome there.

As a fan of DREAM since its inception I would be incredibly disappointed to see it disappear, especially with organizations like World Victory Road who bring us Sengoku rumoured to be in a financial bind as well.

It seems the state of the sport in Japan is at its worst.

DREAM will close the year with only two titles remaining and pray that PUJI Capital are able to summon the large amount of money to pull them out of their current hole, but for now I suggest not holding your breath.

Oh, Kazu via en.susumug.com

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The toughest decision that a professional fighter must make is to determine when its finally time to hang up the gloves and watch the sport from the side line.

In this instance we have 41 year old pioneer of mixed martial arts, Kazushi Sakuraba.

Sakuraba first made a name for himself as a professional wrestler working for the Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi) organization, and later, Kingdom Pro Wrestling until the latter part of 1996.

However, combat sports were more popular in Japan at the time, so the future icon decided to dabble in mixed martial arts.

His first notable event was the UFC's first to Japan. Sakuraba was an unknown Japanese fighter on the card with only one defeat under his belt but ended up winning the first ever UFC ultimate Japan heavyweight tournament.

Fast forward twelve-and-a-half years and you have one of the biggest names in Japanese MMA—throughout his storied career he has had countless memorable battles from running through the Gracie family to battling squaring off against strikers Wandelei Silva and Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic; it seems that the catch wrestler has done it all.

Throughout the past two years, Sakuraba has competed under the DREAM banner; he has gone 3-3 in his time in the organization, picked up victories over Andrews Nakahara, Zelg Galesic and Rubin Williams, and dropped decisions to Kiyoshi Tamura and Ralek Gracie. He was also viciously knocked out by Melvin Manhoef.

The Manhoef bout is the one I want to focus on for a second. Typically, when I watch a Sakuraba match, I worry for his health and safety prior to the fight. Not so much for this one.

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We do this for a number of reasons, the first being that we love fighting, and the second being that, well, gosh darnit we love [some of] you. So after publishing some of the hardships K-1 will encounter in trying to book a K-1 MAX Grand Prix for the rest of the year, Head Kick Legend decided to do some digging as to what exactly is going on with FEG. If you are seeing a pattern here then you are absolutely observant and right; we have been spending a lot of time chasing down shadows in FEG to figure out what exactly is going on in Japan and what fans can expect.

First, we got word from Michael Schiavello that his incredibly busy schedule still has him down for a FEG show October 25th, and that he believed this to be the K-1 MAX Final 16. Good news, finally. Then after some digging, this was the date originally scheduled for DREAM.17 (originally 18, but the Korea show fell through), which very easily could've been swapped out for the K-1 MAX Final 16, as long as they had the television and arena booked and ready. 

It turns out that is not the case at all, as we spoke with FEG USA's Mike Kogan this afternoon and it turns out that DREAM.16 is the last DREAM event for a while, at least 2010. The next MMA event you can expect from FEG is Dynamite!! 2010, which is set to go on as scheduled. As for what happens from there, there is no word yet and will most likely rely on television ratings from DREAM.16 and Dynamite!! as well as how the arrangement with PUJI works out. 

The future of K-1 MAX in 2010 is as foggy as ever, though, as Kogan knew of no dates for the K-1 MAX tournaments for the rest of the year. Logistically, this would all have to happen very soon as last year the Final 16 was April, Final 8 was July and the Finals were October. With all of the fighters tied up already, I have very little hope of this going off as planned.

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Here is yet another in a long line of stories about fighters claiming that FEG owes them money for a fight and cannot seem to get a straight answer. Gary Goodridge is up to the plate this time, claiming that his fight with Gegard Mousasi from Dynamite!! 2009 has yet to yield him the promised pay of $30,000. MMAFighting has the story direct from Goodridge;

"I'm pissed off. I'm fed up. I want my money," said the 44-year-old Goodridge. "Of course, you're like any other fighter at first, you stay quiet. You think, I stake my reputation and my whole career with these people. Of course they're gonna pay. Of course they're gonna pay, since my whole livelihood came from them in the last 13 years. Now it's eight months and it's quite obvious I'm not getting paid. So I'm going to open my mouth now."

They then go on to speak to his manager who elaborates on FEG not being responsive.

"They just won't respond to any emails," said Goodridge's manager, Steve Rusich, who stressed that he did not book this particular fight for Goodridge. "We had a lawyer contact them and they wouldn't respond to him, either. We've heard nothing. Not, 'I'll pay you later.' Not, 'Can you give us some time and I'll give you a little something to tide you over.' Nothing. Zero response," Rusich added.

Rusich acknowledged that getting paid for fights in Japan, where there are no athletic commissions to ensure that promoters make good on their promises, sometimes takes as long as 60 or even 90 days. But never before has he had a fighter who didn't get paid at all, Rusich said.

"Japan has these other rules, but they pay a little more so we accept it. I find myself fronting money to my fighters sometimes because I trust that FEG always comes through. [FEG USA representative] Mike Kogan is fantastic. He always comes through. But in Gary's case, I don't know. It's a bad deal, because he was in some hard times where he just couldn't afford to float the money, let alone not get it at all."

FEG's Mike Kogan commented that he did not handle Goodridge's contract for this fight at all, but will do some research on his own to attempt to get Goodridge his due pay.

Marlon Sandro is looking to avenge his loss to Omigawa, kinda like this. Photo by Taro Irei, Sherdog.com.

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As always, there is a DREAM show on the horizon and we have no details about it. If you follow Japanese MMA you know that there is nothing new about this and until FEG starts talking to the press and letting information trickle down there will be a lot of rumors and reports from fighters. Keep in mind that a lot of what we hear comes from the contracts offered to individual fighters and aren't final until both fighters sign.

Marlon Sandro is the first real leak of information, as he tells Tatame he is on deck for DREAM vs. SRC 2 at DREAM.16 and might fight Omigawa.

What's next commitment?

I have a fight scheduled for September, the event Sengoku x Dream, except that I still have no opponent set. I could not fight at the end of last year in this fusion of the two major events in Japan, but this year they will bring forward to September and I'm already in preparation, though not yet have opponents. I believe that I will face Michihiro Omigawa who is fighting at Dream and was the only guy who beat me, so I think they should give me the rematch.

This fight has a taste for it is a rematch?

Sure, we already started working the bugs and I've done that since I lost, I've been working on top of things that I missed this fight and the result is positive, because I won three fights by knockout after this defeat and my goal for this fight with Omigawa is the knockout. I hope to continue like knocking on my struggles and ending as quickly as possible, not to injure me.

DREAM.16 has long been rumored to be a 'megacard' for TBS, a somewhat desperate attempt to pull in ratings and help revive the brand. Will it be another co-promotion? Time will only tell.

HT: Nightmare of Battle

Our friends over at HDNet know how to take care of their viewers and, of course, their non-viewers who wish they were viewers. If you missed DREAM.15, catch the main event of Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Shinya Aoki and marvel at Aoki's sheer submission brutality.

SBN coverage of DREAM.15

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The only real stories coming out of DREAM.15 involve weight-cutting and what DREAM needs to do to be competitive with its American counterparts. This is very much a departure from last year, where DREAM would put on a fight and the post-fight discussions would revolve around the fights. I'm not really sure what this tells us; if it is that Japanese MMA has finally, truly jumped the shark, or if US MMA fans have simply become more fickle. Zach Arnold discusses the hype, or distinct lack thereof for Aoki vs. Kawajiri.

We had a Lightweight fight that, only for the sake of rankings, meant something. In every other context, it wasn't a fight that was heavily pushed in Japan nor was it a fight that anyone was even talking about (especially the hardcore fans) in the week leading up to it. Usually with the hardcore fans online, you hear some sort of buzz about what happens in Japan. Perhaps there was no buzz for this fight because of the way Aoki got manhandled by Gilbert Melendez last April in Nashville.

This, of course, is issue number one. Fans have decided that in Japan the competition needs to be amped up. Is it the egg on the face of all of the fans and bloggers who insisted that Shinya Aoki was the #2 Lightweight in the world before Gilbert Melendez was able to neutralize him on the ground? As after that the absolute drubbing Aoki took was unreal. Aoki went from the second best to being clearly overrated, and by proxy, Japan was overrated.

So then comes the solutions, with the biggest solution being called for is a reform in weight classes and for weight-cutting to become a standard for Japanese fighters, to keep them competitive with their American counterparts. Leland Roling makes the case for weight-cutting.

Very few fighters in Japan cut weight, but there is some interesting evidence to support it's use. Michihiro Omigawa is currently 7-1 in his last 8 fights as a featherweight, and while we can make an argument that some of those bouts were gift decisions -- it's obvious that Omigawa is a far better fighter at featherweight than he ever was a lightweight. Kazuyuki Miyata is 3-0 in the weight class, defeating one of the better Japanese lightweight-to-featherweight converts in Takafumi Otsuka in his last bout. Strength is one of the huge pluses for Japanese fighters finally dropping in weight, and in Omigawa's case -- his overall strength has been a crushing advantage against almost all of his opponents.

Nightmare of Battle talks about DREAM's proposed split into legitimate Featherweight and Bantamweight classes after sort of tossing out catchweights for the past few years that best fit the competitors. NOB goes into detail of which fighter would fight where, which creates some interesting divisions for DREAM.

One has to wonder, oft-aloud, if this is really the solution for Japan's issues, or if the way of the samurai has simply become outdated by modern technology and training, yet again.

SBN coverage of DREAM.15

Kawajiri has divine taste in trunk-briefs and JOB didn't make weight, bummer, via SportsNavi

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Something sticks out like a sore thumb from DREAM.15's official weigh-ins; Jake O'Brien still hasn't made weight. JOB, who formerly fought in the UFC as a Heavyweight and is probably most well-known for his loss to Andrei Arlovski was slated to fight Gegard Mousasi in a mini-tournament to decide the DREAM Light Heavyweight Champion.

So who is called upon? Super Ricco Rodriguez.

This will be a situation to keep your eye on. Of course, it is interesting that Ricco is being called on to drop to 205lbs to fight Mousasi, as Ricco has been known for his battles with substance abuse and weight problems. If Ricco can make 205 it is actually a small victory in and of itself.

SBN coverage of DREAM.15