KID’s play – his DREAM turns into a nightmare
Published by on July 25th, 2008 in Current Events

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By Zach Arnold

All of us have rough moments in our life. Sometimes, you have a bad day or a bad week at work. Occasionally, you might get into an accident at the workplace or at home. Life is never easy.

Just ask Norifumi “KID” Yamamoto.

Yamamoto was set to face Joseph Benavidez (a student of Urijah Faber’s) on the DREAM 5 card at Osaka Castle Hall. The match was set-up so that Yamamoto would likely win, therefore creating a future possibility of Kid vs. Faber or Kid vs. Hideo Tokoro.

Now, you can throw all of those plans out of the window.

The first sign of bad luck for DREAM management involved Tokoro getting rear-ended in a car accident on the 16th in Machida, Tokyo. While he only suffered minor injuries in the accident, Tokoro’s predictament no doubt gave heartburn to K-1 staffers who were hoping that Mr. Tokoro could fight on the DREAM card to launch the promotion’s new Featherweight class series.

The second sign of bad luck, however, far surpasses anyone’s worse nightmares.

Yamamoto, who may have faced Tokoro in a Featherweight bout on New Year’s Eve, is unlikely going to be fighting for the rest of this calendar year. Kid suffered a partially torn ACL in his right knee that will likely require six months of time off to heal. It’s disastrous news for K-1, as the promotion had built their DREAM 5 event around the Yamamoto vs. Faber’s student storyline. Plus, Yamamoto was one of their two main trump cards (the other being Yoshihiro Akiyama) for New Year’s Eve.

One of the major business storylines going into the DREAM 5 event revolves around what kind of TV rating the program will draw in ‘golden time’ (prime time) on Tokyo Broadcasting System. Without Yamamoto fighting, the rating will certainly go down. The DREAM series of shows on TBS have not drawn very good ratings, which has led to tepid if not lukewarm-at-best support from the TV network for K-1′s MMA project.

The obvious question is what kind of impact will a low rating for DREAM 5 have on the budget to produce K-1′s NYE show. While TV ratings for K-1′s World MAX series have remained steady, everything other rating has declined.

Just to add insult to injury, Yamamoto is not only dealing with a torn ACL but is now also dealing with the media death grip known as Shukan Gendai. Gendai, which is the weekly magazine publication that helped destroy PRIDE, is after Yamamoto this week in a six-page ‘expose’ on Yamamoto’s involvement in ‘marijuana parties.’ In America, people would laugh about a story on this subject getting that much ink. In Japan, it’s deadly serious business and a clear sign that someone powerful is going after Yamamoto.

Dealing with Gendai is no laughing matter. The magazine is published by Kodansha, a very powerful publishing house in Japan. The magazine has good circulation numbers, too, so any sort of negative campaign by the magazine against a famous person can often lead to major PR damage against the person being attacked.

The more pressing and serious question for K-1 is whether or not they will be able to rush Yamamoto back for New Year’s Eve. If they can’t, then their show on NYE is in major trouble. Furthermore, if Yamamoto can’t fight on NYE, how will the promotion look at him as a long-term business play if they feel that he’s not reliable enough to build programs around?