Rizin bombs on NYE on Fuji TV

From what I read, the show peaked during Juju, Cro Cop, the kickboxing grand prix final and the women’s saw final.

They can continue to build Juju, keep Cro Cop around as long as possible and continue to build RENA and Kanna even if random Sherdoggers who had nothing to their ratings don’t like the idea of them hosting WMMA fights.
 
They should get a figure skater in the ring

RIZIN needs to be more aggressive with the woman's market.

They need to find famous woman from Figure skating, Track and field, Tennis and even curling

Can you imagine the entrance of a former figure skater? they could ice the entrance ramp and she could come in one ICE SKATES to music it would be amazing woman would be grabbing the Handkerchiefs etc
 
They should go full entert1ainment mode on the nye show like back in the k-1 and pride days they would do the entire tournament on regulars shows and just have the finals on nye the rest of the card with stuff you only see on nye like k-1 mma cross overs style vs style figths e.i sumo vs judo They should give tenshin the masato treatment feed him harry gouch k-1 rules or ex world boxing champions it be cool if they could get Daiki I mean he fighting outsiders in differ akire so who knows
 
leto1776 said:
These guys have a point. The NYE cards, in the past, have been mostly spectacle fights, with a few legit things thrown in. This year's big card was almost all legit fights. They blew what spectacle fights they had available on the 29th. KING Reina vs Cindy Dandois should have been on NYE. The KING vs the Queen of Hearts. Obviously, Kandori vs Gabi was lost. CroCop vs TK was receiving hate on social media. Everyone knew it was bullshit.

I'm as big of a hater of the freakshows as anyone, but the 29th need to be fll of legit fights, while the 31st show needed the freak fights with the legit stuff periodically mixed in. Japan is just fucking weird like that.



As if Dep and Pancrase fighters would require a ton of money, coming from those cheap promotions.

On the oter hand, I didn't look for the 29th, but did they have any of the promotional banners of the Rizin Fighting Federation (aka, everyone that Rizin usually begs/borrows fighters from) up around the entry stage? I didn't se them.
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I didn’t see the banners they had pancrase and deep show on the titatron for otsuka and ishiwatari
 
tinobar said:
Ice skating?
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No competition against the likes of retiring Mao especially with new stars getting ready for Winter Olympics. So yeah Fuji could do better with an ice show. But first need to
Compete with another channel on the talent. Think another channel had Mao.
 
I'm new to this promotion, but I must say I hate most the ideas in this topic regarding turning the product into something freakier (figure skaters and super heavyweights).

I thought Rizin did amazing, that they just needed a better opponent for Crocop and for the Gabi Garcia fight to go through.

Other than that it was all positive for me. The biggest takeaway being that they built a bunch of new stars that I now want to follow going forward (Horiguchi, Yachi, Shinju Auclair, McCall vs. Kape etc.).

I'll be buying the next show if it's anything like this one. They can improve on the formula, but I don't think they need to panic and turn everything on its head.
 
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Andrew784 said:
RIZIN FIGHTING WORLD GRAND-PRIX 2017』で、(18:30～)4.8%、(19:30～)6.4%、(21:30～)6.2%、(22:50～23:45)4.3%

Very underwhelming early numbers...
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These numbers are comparable to last year. Last year peaked at 7.1% which beat TBS. We need to know how they did against TBS in a comparison and we need to know what the peak was.

The show was reportedly sold out.

Last year's comparison:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MMA/comments/5ljye4/japan_nye_tv_peak_average_ratings_rizin_71/
 
Can anyone remember what numbers shockwave/dynamite events used to draw?
 
Tbh, I'd rather pay for a subbed live stream of Gaki No Tsukai's batsu game than anything MMA related on NYE. it's just better TV.

However, interesting to note that Rena's fight didn't draw the big numbers they were expecting. Not sexist but I guess the japanese audience is still very male-centric when it comes to fight sports. They may want to re-market her (not sure how) but Tenshin seems to be their cash cow. Dude is probably the most exciting martial artists in Japan right now.

Juju's def a HUGE potential crossover star. She's definitely got the looks to be on primetime Japanese tv (i can totally see her on terrace house) and has a famous mom to boot.
 
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Hate to hear this, but @Lionel Mandrake is right. Freakshows and spectacles are the keys to the audience's hearts.

With those as the draws, they can get better exposure on potential aces like Nasukawa.

Some other thoughts about this event:
  • RIZIN and Bellator both had the same problem last year: we're waiting for something big to happen, but the ball never drops. It seems like they're both still in the beginner stage of "please wait while we develop something."

  • Cro Cop / Kohsaka was a joke match-up. I understand they wanted to give Filipovic a squash match, but what a fucking waste of a Cro Cop bout. They should've dangled the carrot in front of Chuck Liddell, and set up a nostalgic "UFC vs. PRIDE" megafight between Cro Cop / Liddell to lure both the old PRIDE fans in Japan, as well as the American audience.

  • RIZIN still needs to fix its international distribution. The paywall is a major barrier to getting international fans, and is also being bypassed with the referral codes. So I'm not sure why RIZIN would be sacrificing its own global exposure to build the non-paying userbase of (I assume) someone else's streaming service. My guess is RIZIN is making five figures max per event from this distribution arrangement.

  • Kubota losing is disastrous. This was supposed to be a big coming out party for her, but getting handled by unknown Asakura already is a bad omen of things to come. The proper strategy to have built her after this tournament was to lure over established American names (IE: Angela Magana), and have Kubota destroy them to create the perception that she was the best WSW fighter in the world. That's one less ace to build around.

  • The big fight they should be building towards is Horiguchi-Nasukawa, on the hopes that Nasukawa destroys Horiguchi for a huge passing of the torch moment, to build Nasukawa as the RIZIN ace. Horiguchi unfortunately isn't the superstar RIZIN needs, but Nasukawa is.

  • They should re-book Garcia-Kandori ASAP. Disappointed they shook hands and killed some of the nuclear heat the feud had.

  • They should also get Jazzy Alpha Female back since she's failed her WWE medicals.

  • Manel Kape is a star in the making, and excuse my French, but him versus Nasukawa next would be just nearly terrific.

  • King Reina is a bust.

  • Yachi and Nozawa-Auclair are potential stars if they protect them.

  • Gomi should fight Kid Yamamoto or Shinya Aoki as a headliner next if RIZIN can get them.

  • Nothing else stood out.
 
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Lionel Mandrake said:
It's not surprising. The Japanese like pro wrestling style spectacles. Which include freak show fights and big dudes. Not a card littered with 105lb women and 125lb men.
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Pretty sure Pride's top ratings were from Giant Silva vs. Ogawa. People always want to slam them for having freakshow fights, but there is a reason for it.
 
RTL said:
Hate to hear this, but @Lionel Mandrake is right. Freakshows and spectacles are the keys to the audience's hearts.

With those as the draws, they can get better exposure on potential aces like Nasukawa.

Some other thoughts about this event
  • Cro Cop / Kohsaka was a joke match-up. I understand they wanted to give Filipovic a squash match, but what a fucking waste of a Cro Cop bout. They should've dangled the carrot in front of Chuck Liddell, and set up a nostalgic "UFC vs. PRIDE" megafight between Cro Cop / Liddell to lure both the old PRIDE fans in Japan, as well as the American audience
  • Kubota losing is disastrous. This was supposed to be a big coming out party for her, but getting handled by unknown Asakura already is a bad omen of things to come. The proper strategy to have built her after this tournament was to lure over established American names (IE: Angela Magana), and have Kubota destroy them to create the perception that she was the best WSW fighter in the world. That's one less ace to build around.

  • The big fight they should be building towards is Horiguchi-Nasukawa, on the hopes that Nasukawa destroys Horiguchi for a huge passing of the torch moment, to build Nasukawa as the RIZIN ace. Horiguchi unfortunately isn't the superstar RIZIN needs, but Nasukawa is.
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No way would Tenshin beat Kyoji in an MMA fight. Keep them away from each other as much as possible or risk Kyoji losing in a kickboxing fight. Kyoji is technically excellent but he has ZERO charisma on camera. He looks boring af.

It's a travesty that Takeru v Tenshin hasn't taken place yet.

I think Rena losing is good/ok marketing wise. I mentioned Takada/Rickson in another thread. Pride found popularity cos Takada lost - it led to a huge japan vs the world rivalry. I think Rena's loss can have a similar effect depending on how they market her. All the past BIG martial arts stars (Masato, Sakuraba, Kohi and KID) gained popularity from having rivalries and those really carried the promotion. Hell look at Conor/Diaz. They have that with Kanna/Rena now. I'm not sure where Rena would have gone if she had won the big one off the bat.
 
I think Horiguchi vs Tenshin in kickboxing would be the plan.

Failing that, pulling out all the stops and making the Takeru fight happen. They really haven't been able to offer him any meaningful competition so far, all his legacy fights have been in RISE and KNOCK-OUT.
 
I wonder if 'bombs' is really the correct terminology. As long as they keep showing it i'm glad. I'd rather watch mma than anything else and would guess the folks who watch it are into mma too. I don't presume to know about that market but in north america it seems there's a post every few days about something or other bombing in the ratings. Again, obviously if it's tanking out and no longer promoted then that's a matter of concern. At the same time, it seems the production costs may not be too high compared to paying big money for productions like what hbo & amazon pay for expensive long form tv. As long as there's access to watching it via live streaming or whatever I think it will build a fairly loyal fan base.
 
Tenshin vs Masato please, if not give us Tenshin vs Erson Yamamoto in MMA.

Crocop vs Fedor please

Gomi vs Aoki please

Gabi vs kandoori in openweight please

McCall vs Kape rematch please
 
Same old stuff applies: nobody wants to watch shrimps or women fight. It doesn't matter if there were "good matches" if people didn't watch it. There are exceptions obviously for smaller fighters and WMMA, but fans do not watch to be saturated with their fights. I understand they are plentiful and likely work cheap, but not enough people care about them.

Sakikabara shut down PRIDE Bushido and worked some fighters into the main shows for a reason: the brand couldn't stand on its own.

Here we are 12 years later, Rizin is relying on nostalgic attractions (Cro Cop),ancient fighters who refuse to put down their sword (TK, Fujita, Aerts, LeBanner), and very little under contract that has a future as a draw with maybe the exception of Tenshin.

I wonder what their PPV stream did for business outside of Japan?
 
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