After all, "the grand coalition" was nothing but a rehabilitation plan for HERO'S. At least, at this point that is what it looks like. From early last year rumor has circulated in Japan's MMA industry that K-1 is trying to sell HERO'S. The show is scoring less than mediocre TV ratings but this MMA show promoted by FEG still has substantial years left on the broadcasting contract with Nippon TV so finding a buyer shouldn't be that difficult. HERO'S is still guaranteed to make a hefty broadcasting fee for the next few years so that has to be attractive to investors. Some source even indicated that this had to be done before K-1 founder Master Kazuyoshi Ishii settles behind bars.

For FEG the most lucrative business is K-1 while HERO'S is now becoming a burden for the organization. Therefore, in the era where M&A seems trendy in the MMA world, HERO'S should be able to find a buyer. But nothing happened last year. And the fact is that no one really knows if FEG was even trying to sell HERO'S or not. Then at the end of 2007 everyone knows that FEG President Sadaharu Tanikawa came up with an idea of "the grand coalition" and the fans thought that PRIDE was to be revived under the name of Yarennoka! and now we will get to see more exchanges between HERO'S and Yarennoka! which means more dream matches, well, at least for the Japanese fans.

But as you can see from the press conference held at Hotel Metropolitan Edmond on February 13th, HERO'S is now called DREAM and the old staff from the DSE group is handling most of the operations. FEG head Tanikawa at the press conference even went far as saying, "I am not going to be involved." And now the man who is the DREAM Event Producer, is a gentleman named Keiichi Sasahara. Yes, he was a former PR man of DSE. "After the event on New Year's Eve (2007) we left a message to the fans, 'the dream will continue' but that event was to just to put an end (to the history of PRIDE) so at the time we really didn't have any specific plan. (for the future) Then we began talking to many people and finally Mr. Tanikawa has agreed to let us handle the show."

At the press conference, all these familiar faces from PRIDE were there, Two MC's from PRIDE Kay Grant and Lenny Hardt, a former DSE PR and DEEP head Shigeru Saeki, and even Daisuke Sato, the director who has been making PRIDE fighters introduction segments. However two persons were missing from the picture. Two people who were sort of a symbol to PRIDE and HERO'S, and that is Nobuhiko Takada and Akira Maeda. Takada was general director of DSE and Maeda was a supervisor of HERO'S. Tanikawa talked about it because both of them were not at the press conference, "The two of them won't have any title but it doesn't mean we are in some kind of dispute. We will continue working with them. In regards to Maeda-san, for this past two to three years, I don't think he was doing something that he really wanted to do at HERO'S."

The truth of the fact is, in Japan, PRIDE still has the biggest influence, perhaps possessing a centripetal force drawing the Japanese MMA fans. HERO'S was not doing well and early this year a rumor even circulated in Japan's TV world that HERO'S is no longer going to be on prime time in 2008. More than likely the show will be rescheduled to midnight or late afternoon on the weekend. Regardless of this rumor, it was apparent that HERO'S needed some change in order for them to attract Japanese MMA fans. And now, HERO'S is DREAM, and at the same time, by joining with former staff from DSE, now it also seems like PRIDE has transformed into DREAM. Yes now for the Japanese fans, PRIDE is back. It just has a different name. And not only are they back, they also have national television coverage, and on top of this, fighters from HERO'S are almost all competing in this new show. Absolutely fabulous news for the Japanese fans, and also this has got to be great news for FEG. After all, FEG has the TV contract and the content that could certainly draw high TV ratings and is going to be handled by the same team who did PRIDE. Sounds good for everyone. The fans would love it, the TV station would be more than happy if the show scores high rating, and if everything goes well, FEG would have K-1 and DREAM, two very strong TV programs.

Now, in terms of the Japanese MMA market, the only competitor FEG has is World Victory Road a new promotion scheduled to begin its first show SENGOKU on March 5th, but the show doesn't have national television coverage. It is only on cable television, which is very minor in Japan. Now does this mean FEG is getting close to monopolizing the entire Japanese MMA market? When both SENGOKU and DREAM begin in March, the entire map of Japanese MMA will change for sure.

Article RE: DREAM Press Conference >>