“How the West is inadvertently holding back MMA’s Globalization.”

Ever since the emergence of mixed martial arts, there has been a hemispherical divide between the two major proponents of the sport; Asia and North America. When Zuffa devoured the slowly decomposing remnants of Dream Stage Entertainment’s PRIDE promotion in 2007, the balance of the MMA world completely shifted and Japanese fans and fighters alike were thrown into a state of obscurity.

Three years later and Japanese MMA is slowly attempting a major revival with both the DREAM and World Victory Road organizations. However, despite this attempt at rehabilitation, neither promotion has managed to capture the same public interest that PRIDE once did, and with most of the secure mixed martial arts promotions existing in the West (the UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, etc), many Asian fighters have been forced into seeking refuge in North America—unfortunately to largely disappointing results and negative critical responses.

While in theory the lack of success may be attributed to the abilities of the Asian fighters making the leap, North American promotions—specifically the UFC—can be seen as accomplices to thir disappointing performances, as they have set these fighters up to fail; not only at establishing themselves in their respective divisions, but with the casual North American MMA fans as well.

In order to understand the gravity of the situation, it is important to explore the unintentional effect that the UFC—and other organizations—have had on supporting the stereotype that Asian mixed martial arts and artists are “inferior”, and how these misconceptions have made the UFC’s path to globalization ever more difficult.

The West’s contributions to the problem…


Asian fighters as Sacrificial Lambs

One of the largest and most frequently occurring mistakes made by Western MMA promotions appears in the form of throwing Asian fighters (unknown to the casual market) to the wolves in their debuts. A perfect example of the UFC committing this harmful error is the way Japanese fighter Kuniyoshi Hironaka handled. Hironaka is a well-respected Shooto veteran, and was signed by the UFC after an impressive performance against Renato Verissimo at Rumble on the Rock 9.

Unfortunately for Kuniyoshi, it seems as though the UFC had other plans for him that really were not in his best interest, as they wanted him to be a stepping-stone for the Jon Fitch’s coming out party. Fitch entering the fight had three relatively important wins the UFC over Brock Larson, Josh Burkman, and the current #1 contender in the welter-weight division, Thiago Alves.
It really does not take a genius to realize that Hironaka was being set-up not just for failure from the start, but also as an agent for Fitch’s successful introduction to the masses, as this was the first time Fitch fought on a main card—having only previously participated on the undercards of Ultimate Fight Night events.

Not once in Hironaka’s four outings did he receive the opportunity to fight on a main card of a numbered UFC, his exclusion from the spotlight and role as a sacrificial lamb persisted with an unaired preliminary fight against Forrest Petz at UFN9—a lose-lose fight for him—and another against a stylistically bad match-up in Thiago Alves. The closest Kuniyoshi got to the main stage was his televised preliminary fight against Jonathon Goulet at UFC 83, where he was brutally knocked out, and consequently cut from the promotion altogether, despite the bout being deemed “Fight of the Night”.

The same sort of problem is occurring in the WEC with Asian fighters being given brutal introductions instead of being built-up and promoted. Yoshiro Maeda was granted a title shot against Miguel Torres after beating Charlie Valencia on the undercard of WEC 32, and was cut after losing to Rani Yahya in his following match. WEC 40 is being headlined by the exact same sort of mistake, with Takeya Mizugaki—an unknown to casual and even some hardcore MMA fans—receiving his first major North American exposure against the world’s best Bantamweight. Takeya is an accomplished fighter from Japan and will give Torres a good fight, but he’s fundamentally being brought in—not only as a last minute replacement for Brian Bowles—but to lose, and ultimately propagate Miguel’s status as the world’s best 135 pounder.

Essentially, the point I’m making here is that Hironaka, Maeda, and Mizugaki—among many other Asian fighters—are either being excluded from the opportunity to break into the North American MMA world by being given unfair debut fights, or they are being shoved onto the undercard which in most circumstances never gets to see the light of day.

Style is secondary to success; keep contenders off the undercard.

Another way in which the UFC has inadvertently perpetuated the stereotype that Asian fighters are inferior to their Western counterparts is through the fact that even the successful Asian fighters are being cast unto the undercard due to their styles being deemed “boring”.

In order to understand the reasoning for this, it’s imperative to recognize that there is a major difference between how Eastern and Western mixed martial arts fans characterize an entertaining fight. In Japan, matches take place in almost complete silence, until someone lands a big shot, passes an opponent’s guard, or avoids a submission attempt, which usually causes the crowd to erupt in joyous shrieks like an over-ecstatic porn star. In North America, casual fans are not quite as learned and respectful towards the sport, defining the best bouts as those which stay on the feet and end in vicious fashion. It is because of this inherent fan bias that fighters not known for throwing caution to the wind are kept out of the public eye, regardless of their success, simply because their styles do not cater to the tastes of the casual North American audience. A prime example of this is the treatment of Yushin Okami, a middle-weight contender with a record of 7 – 1 inside the octagon. 

Although Okami is a front-runner in the UFC middleweight division—with notable wins during his tenure over Alan Belcher, Dean Lister, Kalib Starnes, Jason MacDonald, Rory Singer, Evan Tanner (R.I.P), and Mike Swick—he has only fought on a main card an unfortunate total of three times. While Okami’s methodical style isn’t flashy, it gets the job done, and consistency really should be factored into the determination of attention a fighter should receive. By keeping Okami off the main cards, the UFC is sending numerous problematic messages to the casual fan:

1.That Yushin Okami is a “boring” fighter compared to those appearing on the main card.

2.That no matter how successful you are in the UFC, if you do not appeal to the sensibility of traditional North American fans’, you won’t find yourself in the title spotlight.

Not only is this approach damaging to the formation of Okami’s rapport with fans in North America, but it will hurt the UFC in the long-run. If Okami keeps winning in the fashion that he has been, it will be impossible to deny him a title shot, and when that time comes, the casual fans will not really understand what he brings to the table or even care, which will make marketing that title fight an absolute nightmare.

Instead of hiding Okami from the fans, the UFC needs to integrate him onto more main cards, and he’ll be able to establish a following, much like Lyoto Machida who suffered the same sort of treatment and has since become a favourite among hardcore and casual fans alike.

Ultimately, if the major promotions in the Western world do not start giving Asian fighters a chance to establish themselves within their divisions and with fans as a result of poor match-ups and exclusion from main card status, it will remain difficult to change the one-dimensional view many casual fans possess towards the sport.

On a positive note though, it seems that as of late the UFC has shown a more “forward”-thinking attitude towards Asia by signing fighters like Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Dong Hyun Kim, Caol Uno, and most recently Yoshihiro Akiyama. While that roster certainly will appeal to hardcore fans in North America, and Japanese fans abroad, it is how these fighters will be marketed that will determine whether the UFC will be able to sculpt them into stars on a global level. In order to do that, they’ll need to avoid the mistakes I’ve outlined in this article.

Although the West is certainly a major contributor to the hindrance of globalizing MMA, the East is just as guilty in many regards as well. In part two of this article, I will investigate the detrimental impact that the Eastern MMA scene has had upon the stigmatization of Asian fighters overseas, and how it’s preventing the sport from arriving at its true potential.