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Going by the information we have currently, it is false to say that the event bombed ratings-wise: compared to last year, the ratings were pretty much unchanged (the peaks were lower while the averages of the non-peak segments were slightly higher which almost totally evens out against last year's ratings). This in addition to the fact that they spent substantially less on fighter pay compared to 2016 doesnt sound alarming.
However, we do not yet know how the other stations performed (at least I dont). Especially the NHK music variety program that dominates every year had an exceptionally strong main attraction this time, so we cant pass final judgement on these ratings until we know how they performed relative to the other major NYE events.
We can however already call this event a huge missed opportunity: Like many posters have already pointed out, relying only on legit MMA hasnt and will never work on NYE.
This card did equal to its predecessor without any freak fights. Had they gotten 1 or 2 spectacle fights going, ratings would have been substantially higher and the event would have been a sure lock for their most succesful ever. Also, past NYE ratings have shown that a large enough portion of casuals who tune in for the spectacle superfights "bleed into" the following segments, which usually yields at least a few new "true" fans.
RIZINs real error lies in the fact that they are fully aware of this and did try to set up 2 spectacle fights with Gabi vs Kandori and Sapp vs Aliakbari (when Sapp arrived in Japan for his NYE shitfests he said in an interview that he was negotiating with RIZIN about his farewell fight, confirming the already strong rumors going around), but bungled both of them: instead of letting Kandori vs Gabi go on and either work the fight completely or perform a "soft work" like instructing Gabi not to strike against Kandori, they canceled the entire thing, and instead of giving in to Sapp's financial demands they tried to lowball him and got outbid, which probably cost them both a ton of ratings and Aliakbari (on his twitter Aliakbari first said he had a fight scheduled in RIZIN for NYE, then after talks with Sapp ended it took like 5 days for him to announce his departure towards ACB).
Even the Kandori fight alone would have let this event outperform all their previous NYE events. They made two pretty strange and pretty significant strategic mistakes for which there is really no explanation - it's not like they dont know what works on NYE. In the end, Sakakibara dropped the ball on this one, and we can only hope that they dont do anything reckless with the course the promotion, because I agree with the general opinion of this being one of RIZINs best ever events.
Maybe Kandori turned down the fight? She sounded pretty pissed and it wouldn't be out of the question.
Also I don't think it's fair to say that Rizin just completely ignored spectacle fights when they did book Gabi vs. Kandori, CroCop vs. TK, and Gomi vs. Yachi. Maybe they could have done more, but it's not like they forgot that angle completely.
Like you said I hope they don't do anything reckless, nor do I think it's nesessary. IMO almost everything could have been solved by just replacing TK with a bigger name and also having the Gabi Garcia fight go through. Maybe add 1 other freak fight (ex. Bob Sapp) if you want to play it safe. But other than that you're good.
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