"UFC knows no such thing as compromise. So there was no way to come to a mutual agreement on the terms of the contract."
-Satoshi Ishii at his press conference today, where he announced he would sign a two year deal to fight for WVR's Sengoku. There were 11 cameras and over a hundred members of the press in attendance, about the same sized crowd as when UFC had their conference to announce the acquisition of PRIDE in 2007.
(Props to Yahoo! Sports Navigator for the pic and quotes, and to UGer Yatsuzaki for the quick translation)
There goes Japanese market for UFC. At least They still have Akiyama for Korean market.
UFC must have not wanted to spend too much money on Ishii or they must thought that he wouldn't be as successful in his transition to mma.
UFC doesn't have a good enough TV deal in Japan to make money on Ishii. I'm sure they wanted him simply as a coup, but the type of money they were talking about they would never pay.
Sengoku doesn't exactly either but I'm sure they are working on something in light of this.
surprized UFC only offered a one fight deal. for a name that big to one specific market, I would think they would offer a three fight deal.
frontrowbrian - i call bullshit. UFC almost never offers 1 fight deals. Make someone a star for someone else to capitalize on?
There was probably much more to the contract than that. If he won, he'd probably have to re-sign or not be able to compete for a year plus. If he lost, he'd probably be droppped, depending on his performance, or he'd have to accept a contract for much less money. You never really know with the UFC.
If any thing in the UFC contract threatened potential future Judo competition including the Olympics, I don't want Ishii to sign.
I would rather see him dominate the Olympics, which is the real End-All, Be-All of sports.
They offered him their standard contract, which is where the negotiations broke down.
They then offered him the possibility of a one-fight deal.
the olympics are pretty bad ass imo
frontrowbrian - i call bullshit. UFC almost never offers 1 fight deals. Make someone a star for someone else to capitalize on?
LOL....Ishii is a star.....he doesn't need to be built, the drawing power he already has needs to be harvested. It's WAY different than any other prospect.
Mad Xyientist - UFC doesn't have a good enough TV deal in Japan to make money on Ishii.That probably would have changed about 10 seconds after Ishii signed the contract.
Why Sengoku.... their events are second-rate compared to Dream.
Since when was the UFC into one fight deals?????