UFC's Signing of Yoshihiro Akiyama Paying Defensive Dividends as DREAM Cancels Korean Event

D.W. of Head Kick Legend reports that DREAM's next event in South Korea has been pushed back until after July 2010:

Of course this is hot on the news that DREAM.14 in South Korea is simply not happening, with cited reasons including "no star power" and FEG and Korean broadcasters unable to come to an agreement. The apparent lack of Dennis Kang and Hong Man Choi was a contributing factor, as of course was injuries, but also a lack of a television contract. Like we reported back in January, FEG's relationship with Korean broadcasters was already shaky at best, with Hong Man Choi's status in Korea being tarnished by a draft-dodging scandal. Choi was long the centerpiece for the deal between Korean broadcasters and FEG, and his value went from $1.5mil per show to next to nothing.

According to Kamipro FEG has hammered out the bits of a television contract that they needed to, but of course this is after DREAM.14 was cancelled. When pressed as to what this means for the future, the only answer was "second half of 2010."

Ernest Johann Helwig from MMA Memories adds:

Personally, I'm not too surprised this went down considering that it's true that there is no real star power on the card. As much as I love Dong Sik-Yoon I couldn't fathom him headlining. HERO'S trip to Seoul in 2005 proved fairly good. The show itself was nearly unwatchable in my opinion. The show had a lot of relatively unknown Korean fighters getting squashed by foreign competition. To this day I haven't met anyone who's actually seen that show other than me, which speaks volumes about the quality. Maybe FEG burned all the tapes? That show actually did have something very important that DREAM.14 lacked. Choo Sung-Hoon AKA Yoshihiro Akiyama. Love him or hate him as they do in Japan, the man is revered in Korea. He and a few others, like Gesias Calvancante, Caol Uno, Hideo Tokoro, and Norifumi Yamamato, were the reason anyone in their right mind would actually watch HERO'S.

Akiyama's star power in Japan was unquestionable. He was easily the most watched fight in any show he competed in, whether it be HERO'S or DREAM. Realistically, the averages for the shows weren't even close. During Akiyama's fights, rating would sometimes increase by 3 to 4 points then drop back to their average. His performance at Seoul HERO'S was fairly good as he summoned his inner Remigijus Morkevicius and escape an armbar via slam and eventually pounded his opponent to a TKO.

Although I've openly been critical of the slow pace at which the UFC is giving fights to Akiyama, I have to admit the signing is definitely a win for the UFC if only for defensive purposes. By signing Akiyama, they robbed DREAM of one of the biggest stars of Japanese and South Korean mma. 

And when they weaken Japan's biggest promotion, it means they prevent the re-emergence of a true international rival like PRIDE who was able to out compete them for a number of top fighters for many years -- Wanderlei Silva, Shogun Rua, the Nogueira brothers, Takanori Gomi and especially Fedor Emelianenko.

The fact that Akiyama is only appearing on the very biggest cards makes me wonder if his contract is so expensive that the UFC can only afford him if he appears on the most successful PPVs.

Now it remains to be seen if they'll be able to make offensive use of Akiyama beyond putting him on the lower-half of Brock Lesnar cards once a year.