What does “Jo” means in Japanese?
If you looked at the area around Osaka-Jo Hall, anyone could tell the answer.
This 16,000 capacity arena is sitting right next to the famous Osaka Castle.
That’s right, in this case “Jo” translates to “castle” in English.

Osaka Castle Park is next to OAP (Osaka Amenity Park) Towers, a popular spot for young gals with fancy shops and various cuisines.

Osaka Castle was built by a Shogun named Hideyoshi Toyotomi back in 1583 but it was burned down in “Osaka Natsu no Jin (The Summer Battle in Osaka)” in 1615. (This current castle was rebuilt in 1931 funded with donations from Osaka citizens)
Now this Shogun Hideyoshi is famous in history for starting from the bottom. He was a son of a farmer but was very ambitious and started his Samurai career as an attendant in charge of soldiers’ footwear and made it all the way to the top. Yes Hideyoshi is the perfect example of “a man who worked hard and achieved his success” especially in the early part of Japanese elementary school education.

Is Hideyoshi a perfect role model? Well, not quite. The reality, well, according to the history recorded, was a bit more complicated than that. Hideyoshi was just like any other vicious dictator in world history. He can be unreasonably selfish and sometimes very treacherous. I mean this guy chopped the head of a tea master for making a prohibited black colored tea bowl. Then of course, everyone who has seen the film “Rikyu” by Hiroshi Teshigahara (the very first Japanese filmmaker nominated for an Academy Award as Best Director who is also a renown tea master) is fully aware of the fact that he forced this very famous tea master named Rikyu Sen to seppuku because he was afraid of Rikyu’s enormous influence on the public.

This horizontal flags with fighters names are a tradition, which came from the Sumo world. Fighter’s sponsors usually provide these flags and that means only top fighters gets to have flags. Of course, this is in Japan but we also saw Wanderlei Silva, Heath Herring, Mario Sperry,and Mark Coleman flags up.

Hideyoshi was always battling against the shadow of his mentor Shogun Nobunaga Oda. Oda who conquered Japan a generation before him was very keen on the new and modern; foreign culture, art, language, fashion, etc. Hideyoshi however, after all, was a country boy. When he came into power he tried though. He made friends with artists hanging out with cultural leaders like Rikyu and even made a tearoom constructed with only gold. (This actually reminds me of a bedroom by this New York art dealer who got arrested last year for selling millions of dollars worth of fake paintings) But it wasn’t quite there. His sense and a taste was just not cutting edge. Therefore he was jealous of Rikyu who had enormous support from the public because of his art and also apparently jealous of his mentor Oda, who even after his death was still remembered by citizens for being very modern and strong, therefore extremely reliable.
So Hideyoshi eventually decided to try invading a foreign country, China to be precise, to show his superiority over Oda, who only embraced domestic soil, but he died in the process never achieving the recognition he was looking for.

Tenshukaku, the tower part of the castle, is eight stories high and 54 meters tall. There is a great view of Osaka city from the observation area located on the top floor.

Since its opening in 1989, Osaka-Jo Hall has hosted some of the most memorable music concerts, events, shows, and pro-wrestling bouts including Riki Choshu vs. the late Jumbo Tsuruta, but in terms of MMA, PRIDE was the first one to be here. Even Osaka’s own Akira Maeda’s RINGS couldn’t make it into this hall because Osaka is a market known for being very difficult to sell tickets in. Osaka people are negotiators. They are also known for having a straight forward no bullshit type of character and almost every consumer at any shop purchasing anything always asks for a discount! As hagglers, Osaka people want things to get done their own way just like Hideyoshi. They always want better and more than the others, certainly better than the one in Tokyo.
Even immensely popular PRIDE had to come up with a fight card like Naoya Ogawa vs. Masaaki Satake, the battle of Judo vs. Karate, to penetrate this market. Back then Ogawa was the last big Japanese name left and Osaka people got to see this pro-wrestler’s rare appearance in the world of real fighting. On top of this, both Sakuraba and Takada were in the line-up. For Japanese fans, this was the best PRIDE could offer. Then in the next PRIDE in Osaka-Jo Hall, the main card was Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Mark Coleman. This was Minotauro’s second fight in PRIDE after coming in as RINGS K.O.K. champion, while Coleman was a defending PRIDE GP heavyweight champion. This was probably one of the biggest match-ups PRIDE could have come up with at the time. In addition to this, Don Frye was making a comeback into MMA after few years of rendezvous with pro-wrestling. It’s fair to say that a majority of the MMA fans all over the world wished they could be in Osaka, right?

Osaka market is tough though.
Recently, with Gomi, Chonan, and Mach Sakurai, PRIDE Bushido couldn’t sell out the event. In fact, attendance was notch below 10,000 and that’s one of the worst in PRIDE’s history. This actually is amazing considering how popular PRIDE in Japan is. You can’t take Osaka people lightly. Hideyoshi planted a jealousy-driven seed called “greed” in Osaka Castle more than four hundred years ago and since then, without the best of the best, Osaka people will not be satisfied and that applies to MMA fans in this city as well.
And that is the reason why we believe Osaka-Jo Hall will continue to host important and memorable match-ups in the history of fight sports. Good for Osaka people, right? They demand what they want therefore they get to see awesome fights.