Meet the Man Behind Sengoku
TOKYO -- Sengoku made its debut in early 2008 in the shadow of Dream, Pride Fighting Championships’ spiritual successor. To the skeptical and jaded fan base abroad, Sengoku looked like just another big-money venture destined to fall into obscurity in the shrinking Japanese mixed martial arts market.
Almost six months later, the scene changed. Kicking off its lightweight and middleweight tournaments, Sengoku suddenly transformed from “that other Japanese promotion” into a true proving ground for the world’s best talents not yet signed by the UFC or Dream.
Sengoku finally found a direction, and, refreshingly, it was not what the MMA community had come to expect from watching Japanese shows promoted by Dream and Pride.
“Pride had great competition during its time, but K-1 and Dream lean toward garnering television ratings and entertaining the masses,” Sengoku representative Takahiro Kokuho said. “For us, Sengoku is a competition. We want it to be real sport. We want to find out who really is the strongest, so we search the world over for new prospects, so we do not end up relying on fighters who are just big names or are names that are past their prime.”
For better or worse, Japanese MMA has always been tied to the ghost of professional wrestling, which explains its spectacle-oriented promotional practices. Thus, Kokuho’s words are a surprising revelation for a promoter of a major Japanese show. Though billed as public relations director of Sengoku parent company World Victory road, Kokuho’s title can be misleading. He is the brains -- and brawn -- behind Sengoku.
Booking venues, rallying sponsor support, negotiating with camps, forging relationships with grass-roots promotions and visiting the smaller shows to scout talent -- Kokuho does it all, making him one of the busiest men in all of Japanese MMA.
In addition, Kokuho owns and directs J-Rock, a management company representing athletes, entertainers and fighters, such as Hidehiko Yoshida, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Makoto Takimoto and Michihiro Omigawa. As the manager of notable Japanese fighters in a promotion still working to garner mainstream support, no one could blame Kokuho for tossing softballs at his charges. Most might expect it.
“To be honest, I’d really like it if a Japanese fighter could win our featherweight grand prix,” Kokuho said, “but to book easy opponents against our Japanese fighters will not make them great. Even if they win, their value doesn’t rise, and they don’t learn anything. Since this is a tournament, they’ll eventually meet up with strong fighters anyway, so why not let them face each other now?”
When the first lineup for Sengoku’s featherweight tournament was revealed, fans were surprised to see compelling matchups from the outset. Recent high school graduate Tetsuya Yamada faced his stiffest test yet in Ronnie Mann; tournament favorite Hatsu Hioki squared off against then undefeated American Top Team prospect Chris Manuel; and J-Rock’s own Omigawa met rising featherweight force L.C. Davis. While Yamada put forth a valiant effort in defeat and Hioki amazed with technical dominance, the often-overlooked Omigawa’s stock rose when he pitched an unexpected three-round shutout against Davis.
“In the past, the Japanese MMA audiences couldn’t really tell if star fighters were being challenged by their opponents, but these days, their eyes are not as forgiving, so we have to be more diligent in booking,” Kokuho said. “Take, for example, Wanderlei Silva. While he is certainly a very strong fighter, in the beginning, they lined up many weak Japanese fighters for him for a very long time. They just lined them up. During his career in Japan, he only had strong competition every so often. Whenever he fought someone that could challenge him, he took them to decisions and sometimes lost. This also explains his performance now in the UFC.”
Kokuho’s scientific matchmaking may be a boon to dedicated fans of the sport, but history has taught that catering to the hardcore base is not feasible when it comes to attracting the new viewers needed to pay the bills.
“We don’t want to only cater to one side or the other,” Kokuho said. “We want to keep the hardcore fans while slowly expanding beyond them to add more.
“In March, we had the [James] Thompson-[Jim] York fight on the same event as our featherweight tournament, and that was it for show-style bouts on that card,” he added. “We won’t be doing things like Bob Sapp-Kinniku Mantaro, however, because while that draws a lot of attention, it hasn’t proven to keep people interested beyond that fight, and it drives hardcore fans away. Our formula is like introducing new fans to water, then giving them cola. Afterward, when you give them water again, they’ll realize how much better it is for them.”
It seems like a logical modus operandi, but for now, Sengoku still lags behind Dream, which has experienced a drop in popular interest. Kokuho paints a wider picture.
“When we’ve surveyed people in the city about martial arts, 80 to 90 percent recognized K-1,” he said. “It drops to about 50 percent recognition when we asked about Pride. Then it drops to almost nothing if we ask about Dream. Sengoku is in the same situation. However, for the people that do know Dream, when asked if they know Sengoku, they do and vice-versa. Hardly anyone really knows either promotion here, but hardcore fans certainly know both.”
Kokuho acknowledges Dream’s deal with the Tokyo Broadcasting System as much larger than Sengoku’s deal with TV Tokyo. However, he points out that Dream still has not made inroads into the public consciousness despite the advantage.
“The problem is that Dream isn’t really gaining traction beyond their TV shows,” Kokuho said. “If you look at Dream right now, there’s hardly anyone that people recognize outside of [Norifumi] “Kid” [Yamamoto], [Kazushi] Sakuraba and [Hideo] Tokoro. Ask anyone outside, you won’t even find a hundred people who know who [Shinya] Aoki is.”
Still, Kokuho remains optimistic, and despite his rival’s difficulties with ratings and the differences in their end product, he hopes for their eventual success. He understands that the welfares of Sengoku’s fighters -- and others -- are tied into Dream.
“We really, truly hope that Dream can succeed at the end of the day, for various reasons,” Kokuho said. “One big reason is that if they get popular, Sengoku will rise in popularity, as well. Another reason is that if Dream were to go away, all of their fighters would be out of jobs, and we at Sengoku do not have the capability to support all of them. If anything, we just want to be a different product to them in the MMA world -- something for fans to compare and contrast.”
Given the matchups of solid talents and the devotion to developing up-and-comers like Muhammed Lawal, Maximo Blanco and Shigeki Osawa, Sengoku’s product as a major Japanese promotion feels unique. Its approach to the sport looks like a novel and optimistic compromise of catering to the hardcore base while gradually reaching out to newer fans.
“In soccer and baseball, teams build a strategy, fight and compete for real,” Kokuho said. “It’s easy to generate attention by pitting, say, a pro baseball player against a TV personality, but we’re not in that business. Stars are born naturally throughout the season for sports like soccer and baseball, and we believe that stars can be born in MMA through natural competition, as well. We now have this fine line that defines us and differentiates us.”
