‘A product that’s nothing like the UFC’: Ex-PRIDE exec Nobuyuki Sakakibara ranks top 3 favorite NYE moments

Celebrating the beginning of a new year by watching MMA fights has been a tradition in Japan since Pride FC introduced its first New Year’s Eve event in 2003, and former Pride head Nobuyuki Sakakibara is keeping that tradition alive with RIZIN Fighting Federation.

RIZIN closes the year on Dec. 31 with Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Makoto Takahashi for the flyweight title at RIZIN 45, which goes down Dec. 31 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama. Ahead of the event, Sakakibara shared with MMA Fighting his top three favorite New Year’s Eve moments as an MMA executive.

The 2003 New Year’s Eve lineup was headlined by Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and featured stars such as Royce Gracie, Don Frye, Quinton Jackson, Hayato Sakurai, and many others. That one, however, did not make Sakakibara’s podium.

“I would say the first one would be the 2006 New Year’s Eve because that is the first New Year’s Eve event we did without Fuji television,” Sakakibara said. “The entire thing of the challenge that we’ve been doing with Fuji television on New Year’s Eve is to deliver fight content to the Japanese people on free terrestrial television in a long program. It’s not two hours, it’s just a long program on the most competitive day of the network. Our challenge has been continuing to do it with Fuji television; 2006 was the first New Year’s Eve without doing Fuji television, so that was definitely a challenge and a memorable event for me.”

The 2006 New Year’s Eve card, Pride Shockwave 2006, was topped by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mark Hunt, with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Josh Barnett in the co-main event. Takanori Gomi, Mauricio Rua, Shinya Aoki, and Gilbert Melendez were victorious that night.

Pride had many other memorable New Year’s Eve nights, like the Shockwave 2005 show with Wanderlei Silva vs. Ricardo Arona, Takanori Gomi vs. Hayato Sakurai, Dan Henderson vs. Murilo Bustamante, Mark Hunt vs. Mirko Cro Cop, plus Fedor Emelianenko in a freak show match against “Zuluzinho.” That, however, didn’t make Sakakibara’s list.

Instead, he points to the doubleheader that kicked off his time with RIZIN in 2015. The first show in the company’s history went down Dec. 29 of that year, with another show two days later to conclude a heavyweight grand prix. Jiri Prochazka, Vadim Nemkov, Muhammed Lawal, and Teodoras Aukštuolis advanced to the tournament semifinals on Dec. 31, and “King Mo” knocked out future UFC champion Prochazka to claim gold later that night.

“The fact that Fuji television was able to commit to RIZIN, which had no significant accomplishments or any kind of background at the time, we were just starting,” Sakakibara said. “It was our first event, but yet Fuji television was able to commit to us. They didn’t know what to expect, except it was me and my team doing this event. I do believe that the success that RIZIN is experiencing today is because Fuji television committed to bringing us back into live television. That event back in 2015 with both teams, everybody kind of reuniting to put together an event on New Year’s Eve, that means a lot to me as well.”

A co-promotion between RIZIN and Bellator for the 2022 year-end show completes Sakakibara’s top three, although it ended with a 5-0 sweep for Bellator on his home turf, as A.J. McKee, Patricio Pitbull, Kyoji Horiguchi, Juan Archuleta, and Gadzhi Rabadanov beat RIZIN’s Roberto Satoshi, Kleber Koike, Hiromasa Ougikubo, Soo Chul Kim, and Koji Takeda.

“It’s a promotion vs. promotion, full-on superfights from top to bottom,” Sakakibara said. “Being able to do such a challenge in these days, I feel it’s definitely some kind of a significant accomplishment. We got the hardcore fans to get excited, we got Japanese and people from all over the world to care about what we do in Japan. This year we don’t have that kind of concept, but being able to deliver a world-class promotion vs. promotion was definitely a memorable challenge.”

Sakakibara is excited for RIZIN 45, the world’s final MMA event of 2023.

“The New Year’s Eve event is a grand sum of the entire year,” Sakakibara said. “Many things happened in the MMA world this year, a lot of stuff happened in Japan this year. Just to point something out, Japan has been experiencing a new type of combat sport content called breaking down, which is 60-second pretty much amateur competition, but that has been taken off this year. We’re happy that we’ve been able to work with them and introduce their type of content over the RIZIN New Year’s Eve card as well.

“Obviously, we’ve been reaching out to various groups of people who enjoy combat sport content. Despite the level of competition, we have legitimate title fights and we have fights that fighters are making their MMA debuts. We have a variety of levels and storylines and the narratives behind each of these events, so I’m very happy that we’re able to deliver a product that’s nothing like the UFC, it’s nothing like Bellator, that we can cater to multiple groups of people who would enjoy the show overall.”

Japanese star Kai Asakura will face Archuleta in the co-main event, but the bantamweight belt is now vacant after Archuleta missed weight on Saturday. Asakura will be crowned the new champion should he win, but Sakakibara said the promotion no longer depend on local stars thriving in the ring in order to do good numbers in Japan.

“Kai Asakura is definitely a key figure in the Japanese MMA scene,” Sakakibara said. “Obviously, his brother Mikura Asakura, he’s much bigger, but just to give you an idea how popular these guys are, MMA fans know him, the casual fans know him, the non-MMA fans know him, and a general sports’ fan knows about them. That’s how much they are known just in general. With that said, they are definitely one of the faces of the Japanese MMA scene along with Horiguchi.

“As far as the fight itself, obviously a win would definitely help spike his popularity, give him more credibility in terms of exposure and whatnot, but at this point, we’ve told the story of how he got here, overcoming injuries and whatnot. The fans are pretty much all satisfied with the story, the narrative that we’ve shown already, so it doesn’t really matter about the results. If he wins, great, but even if he doesn’t win, we know how to tell the story and the fans like to follow the story of him anyways. Either way, win or lose, we can focus on it and pick up from that and continue to cater to what the fans want to see.”