@ Triggy Bangster – You have a couple of decent points but the Japanese fans seems to have something that the US fans lack and that is respect. Due to this intangible, it probably changes much of perception towards “who is the better audience”. Also you make a spurious correlation between Japanese fans and the Japanese fight management. The Japanese fans aren’t deciding these freak show match ups. The management are the ones scheduling these fights in order to draw the casual fans in. Yes, like the US, there are casual fans and ‘hardcore’ fans. But on a whole, the Japanese casual fans are FAR more knowledgeable than the US casual fans.

@Triggy Bangster- I concur. Japanese fans would get a lot louder if they drank more. Apparently, “boo” isn’t part of the vocab.

I love how everyone assumes the Japanese are such knowledgeable viewers simply because they sit there practically silent, and “ooh” and “ahh” at certain moments.

We are supposed to believe that these Japanese fans understand the sport’s intracacies far better than Bobby ‘Bud Light’ from Coloumbus, Ohio. Yet these thoroughly educated sophisticates from the Far East simply prefer to watch Bob Sapp vs. Akebono over say, Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin, because they truly understand what is going on in the fight game, as opposed to these blood-lusting, inbred, trailer-park residents over in the US.

Seriously?

Literally (that’s a big word for Trigg), Bob Sapp is in five of the top ten highest rated matches in Japanese fight history! They would prefer to see Wanderlei Silva or Ricardo Arona bludgeon Kazushi Sakuraba every year than set up a match between legitimate contenders of the same skill level.

Now, I’m not saying that Trigg isn’t right about the American fans. In fact, I would probably say the ratio is closer to 70 : 30 between total morons and reasonably educated American MMA fans. But let’s not kid ourselves about the supposed knowledge of the Japanese fanbase – a fanbase I might add that currently lacks sufficient interest in MMA as a sport that its homegrown MMA leagues are all on the brink of failure. Dream and Sengoku can’t even get solid TV deals anymore, and a lot of that has to do with the shift in MMA from outright spectacle, which the Japanese seemed to love, into a serious sport, which the Japanese seem to have only a very mild taste for, at best.

Maybe Dream should look into what Bob Sapp is up to for this New Year’s Eve, so that we can see his beautiful transition game as he goes for submission after submission, against the best competition in the world as the fans “ooh” and “ahh.” That is real MMA, with real MMA fans to appreciate it!

Or, maybe even Sapp has run his course over there, and MMA’s resurgence in the Land of the Rising Sun is awaiting the next big freak show to step up and fill his oversized shoes and save the “sport” as it exists in Japan. Hopefully that star will come complete with a tumor on their pituitary gland, because nothing says great MMA to the Japanese like excessive acromegaly!

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH STINGRZA POST ABOVE! SHEILDS SEEMS 2 BE PRETTY COCKY TOWARDS FIGHTERS THAT HE KNOWS HE WILL NOT FACE WHILE HE’S PROTECTED UNDER ELITE XC! CAN’T WAIT 2 SEE HIM GET HIS FACE CAVED IN! HOPEFUL THAT IT WILL BE IN HIS NEXT FIGHT!

Jake Shields is seriously becoming an annoying pest. All he does is issue challenges to fighters in other organizations (GSP, Aoki) when he beats B-level welterweights.

Maybe its a misquote but the way its written in this post is still wrong.

You CAN’T say – “Literally on the other hand is a bunch of morons” that means that there are actually a group of morons on your hand.

You CAN say “On the other hand are a bunch of people that are literally morons”

The “on the one hand and on the other hand” expression is figurative, not literal.

Total lame grammar police, I know. Misusing the term literally is a pet peeve I have, but I mostly took offense to the bashing of US MMA fans.

While the Japanese may understand the sport better, watching a DREAM or PRIDE event is like watching a tennis match. They are so quiet and reserved it takes away from of the intensity of the action in the ring. As a viewer, I would much rather have a crowd of morons going wild then a crowd of intellectuals politely golf clapping as a fighter is choked out.

Actually, I didn’t use the term “literally” wrong. 50% of American fans are not figuratively morons, who don’t know what they are talking about, they are literally morons who don’t know what they are talking about. (i.e in a literal manner or sense) See also, Affliction wearing, Matt Hughes fans, the guys who paid Tim Sylvia $800,00 to lose in 36 sec, Kimbo Slice is the best evah, etc.
Also check out my website at Triggonomics.com. No naked pictures of me for sale (sorry Tommy Speer and Matt Hughes) but you can buy one of my t-shirts.

Maybe Aoki’s problem is that he just fought two matches in one night, one that went the distance and another that saw him get KO’ed on the ground. No Bushido? Fuck you, Jake Shields.

It’s ironic that Frank Trigg misuses the word “literally” while in the process of insulting the intelligence of half of America’s MMA fans. Trigg figuratively has shit for brains.

Kenny hinted that the UFC might bring someone over from Japan to fight him on last weeks MMA live. Perhaps it’s Aoki? That’d be a sweet fight.

STFU Kenny, all you did was run all night. Why did you get into MMA if you didnt want to fight? Dont make stupid shit up because you couldn’t submit me! Take your “I finish fights” talk somewhere else cause it didnt fly with me! I hope you get your nerdy face pounded by Edgar or Penn maybe youll actually fight them. I’ll get my shot. And I’ll actually fight to get it. Remember Kenny, nobody likes an elusive fighter. Nobody!