Tape delay for Japan viewing of Fight Night 21
Date: 2010-03-09 00:00:00
Source: http://www.ifight365.com/2010/03/ufc-fight-night-2...
Submitted By: MMAFightsDump
At a press conference in Tokyo, the UFC has announced that the upcoming UFC Fight Night 21 event from Charlotte, NC that will see former PRIDE Lightweight Champion Takanori Gomi make his UFC debut against former UFC Lightweight Championship challenger Kenny Florian in the night’s main event will air on a tape-delay basis on Japanese network TV. The deal, with TV Tokyo, the smallest free-to-air broadcast network in Japan, will see the show air in a one hour timeslot in primetime, with Gomi’s bout, as well as the bouts of fellow Japanese stars Caol Uno and Yushin Okami expected to air. The UFC currently airs their events in Japan on pay-per-view service WOWOW and had a previous deal with TV Tokyo in 2005 that was quickly dissolved. With the UFC continuing to expand to places like Australia and the United Arab Emirates, it is not impossible to believe that this could be the first step in the process of the UFC attempting to hold a live event in Japan, though the promotion currently sits behind not only DREAM and Sengoku, but other promotions like Shooto and DEEP when it comes to the Japanese fanbase. Perhaps an hour of network primetime TV will help the UFC in their attempts to break through to the Japanese market, one of the last frontiers for the promotion in their quest for world MMA domination.
