‘If You Can’t Promote That Sport, You Shouldn’t Be Doing It’

“I think there are a lot of great ways to promote a kickboxing fight. Kickboxing is interesting, it’s an entertaining sport.”

One of the biggest kickboxing matches in recent memory happened in June 2022.

The long-anticipated super fight between talented strikers, Tenshin Nasukawa and Takeru Segawa, set combat sports blaze in the world-famous Tokyo Dome. Nasukawa won the bout via a thrilling unanimous decision (watch highlights), retiring from the sport afterward and doing big metrics for an event that was essentially landlocked to Japan.

Tenshin vs. Takeru aired exclusively through the Japanese streaming service, Abema, and amassed a whopping 500,000 pay-per-view (PPV) buys. The numbers resulted in $25 million for the event plus $5 million through sponsors, and $50 million in revenue. An impressive attendance also filled out the venue, clocking in around 59,000, and sold 56,399 tickets. For comparison, Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) attendance record was 57,127 at UFC 243 in Melbourne, Australia’s Marvel Stadium in Oct. 2019.

Despite the success of “The Match 2022” between the legendary strikers, top mixed martial arts (MMA) promoters from UFC and ONE Championship, Dana White and Chatri Sityodtong, have been critical of the sport in recent months. White stated in a post-fight scrum at Contender Series last month (Sept. 12, 2023) that kickboxing “never took off” or had any big fights past the 1980s, therefore, there wasn’t any point in trying to get involved. Sityodtong, on the other hand, does include kickboxing matches in ONE events, but recently blasted the K-1 promotion, specifically, calling it “low-level” and not worth co-promoting with for potential Takeru bouts.

As one of the men involved in putting together Tenshin vs. Takeru amongst various other kickboxing matches and tournaments in RIZIN Fighting Federation, Nobuyuki Sakakibara believes these comments say more about the promoter than the sport.

“I honestly think them as promoters talking about a sport like that … I don’t appreciate them talking like that,” Sakakibara told MMA Mania on BROADENED HORIZIN. “I think that’s an issue on their personal level because kickboxing is an amazing sport, it’s a fun sport, and as a promoter, if you cannot promote that sport, you shouldn’t be doing it. I think there are a lot of great ways to promote a kickboxing fight. Kickboxing is interesting, it’s an entertaining sport.

“If you feel like it’s not happening, it’s a promoter’s fault that’s not doing their job,” he continued. “They’re not picking up the right points, they’re not promoting it right. So, I think, as a promoter, they shouldn’t be saying that to specific sports. If they’ve tried and if they can’t do it, it’s up to them and it’s their fault. We know how to promote interesting fights and we make it interesting.”

Sakakibara’s history in the fight game dates back to the PRIDE Fighting Championship era, where he famously went neck-and-neck with UFC during the mid-2000s. PRIDE and UFC even briefly co-promoted during one instance, putting future UFC Hall of Famer, Chuck Liddell, in one of the tournaments. PRIDE eventually was bought by the UFC, leaving Sakakibara out of the business on a seven-year non-compete clause.

RIZIN is rapidly approaching its 10th year in existence. Coincidentally, ONE puts on more kickboxing matches and has champions in the sport, unlike RIZIN. However, Sakakibara has managed to create some real spectacles within the sport and his promotion and in terms of overall talent, there’s an argument to be made that it’s much deeper.

“When you look at the amount of practitioners who practice kickboxing, even Muay Thai in Thailand where ONE is doing their stuff, there is so many contestants,” Sakakibara said.
“Probably more than MMA when you look at it. From amateurs and kids. There are a lot of people who practice kickboxing. So, the potential is there, the market is there. I think it’s up to the organizers. They need to figure it out in order to make kickboxing a popular sport. The talent is there.”

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BROADENED HORIZIN Ep. 32 AUDIO – 以下の日本語版: