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It’s been hinted at for months, and today the UFC finally made it official. The organization will return to Japan where PRIDE FC once ruled the mixed martial arts landscape. UFC Asia’s Mark Fischer made the announcement earlier today.

They haven’t determined yet if it will be a numbered event or a Fight Night card, but the show will go down on February 26, 2012 at the Saitama Super Arena, the same arena PRIDE ran many of their shows and DREAM continues to run theirs.

“It’s been over 10 years since a UFC event was held in Japan and we’re pumped to bring the fastest growing sport in the world there once again,” said UFC President Dana White via video message. “Japan has played a huge role in getting the sport to where it is today. UFC stars such as [Quinton] “Rampage” Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, [Antonio Rodrigo] “Minotauro” Nogueira all made names for themselves fighting in the Pride organization and dozens more fought in front of the passionate Japanese fans at some point in their careers. Japan has also produced world class fighters such as [Yoshihiro] Akiyama, [Takanori] Gomi and Yushin Okami. They have all headlined major UFC events all over the world. Now, this February, the wait is finally over – we’re coming back to Japan.”

Fischer added that they plan to make it an annual event.

“Let me also say that while UFC Japan in 2012 will be the first event for Zuffa in Asia, it certainly won’t be the last,” said Fischer. “We hope to make UFC Japan an annual fixture on our calendar and we also have plans to follow-up with a series of high quality events across Asia.”

The card won’t be revealed until November, but Japanese fighters such as Yushin Okami, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Hatsu Hioki, Michihiro Omigawa, Takanori Gomi, Riki Fukuda and Takeya Mizugaki are all said to be possibilities.

There is a catch however. Well, at least for the Japanese fans who might want to attend the show. In order to align the live broadcast with the regularly scheduled start time in North America, the UFC has decided to start the event at 10am JST. Some see this as a proverbial kick in the balls to the Japanese fan base. After all, who wants to go to a MMA event at 10am on a Sunday morning? Fight Opinion’s Zach Arnold thinks this further proves his point that this is nothing more than a “vanity show.”

I knew it was a vanity show all along and, yet, I was not surprised by the online reaction criticizing me for stating the obvious. So, what am I surprised about? I’m surprised at just how nakedly transparent UFC is in regards to not even making standard concessions to the beleaguered Japanese MMA audience in regards to the production of this vanity show. We’re going to get the standard cookie-cutter UFC production with a 10 AM start time.

If UFC is truly living in a bubble and thinks that what they are planning for this Japanese show will work like it does everywhere else, then they are even more clueless than I thought they were. But you know what? I don’t believe that. Their front office reads this site and has read this site since it first started. They are not dumb. What they are, however, is egregiously arrogant and flippant. As I stated before, UFC has money to burn on a Japanese joy ride and what Dana wants, Dana gets. This is going to be his grand ‘ol party to say screw you to the ghost of PRIDE in PRIDE’s old home arena. This is his message to the Japanese MMA fans that what promoters served them was inherently wrong and that he’s going to show the fans ‘the right way’ to produce an MMA show.

The plan is to configure Saitama Super Arena for 20,000 seats. The question is: Are there 20,000 Japanese fans who don’t mind waking up early on a Sunday morning to attend an event produced by an organization that hasn’t exactly been welcomed there in over a decade?

With the Japanese MMA scene barely hanging on by a thread, the UFC is poised to swoop in and make their mark in the country where PRIDE Fighting Championships once ruled the sport. Dana White mentioned over the weekend that the UFC had plans to invade Japan “very soon,” and while it may not happen this year as he suggested, it very well could in early 2012.

MMA Weekly is reporting that the UFC is indeed targeting their first trip to Japan in more than a decade on Feb. 26, 2012 and it may take place in an arena very familiar to Japanese MMA fans — the Saitama Super Arena.

According to sources speaking to MMAWeekly.com on Sunday, UFC officials are looking at a Feb. 26, 2012, date in Japan with the show currently targeted for the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama.

While the venue has been reserved by agencies working with Zuffa in Japan, this is still just the preliminary location they are focusing on for a return to Japan. Other venues and locations are being looked at, but Saitama Super Arena is currently the most likely landing spot.

White predicted that the company would likely end up in Japan in 2011, although our sources are indicating the early part of 2012 is more realistic at this point.

UFC Asia’s Mark Fischer is apparently leading the charge and said to be in contact with several Japanese promoters who have run shows there before, but it’s unclear if they’re going to work with one of them or not.

However it goes down, it will definitely be weird to watch a UFC with hardly any crowd noise.

MMA Fighting’s Dan Herbertson has been providing a steady stream of news and notes from the Japanese MMA scene in the past few days. Here’s a quick rundown, but I suggest you check out his articles on FEG and the UFC if you’re at all interested in what’s going on across the Pacific.

— It looks like it’s going to be awhile before FEG’s fate is decided. The parent company of K-1 and DREAM is currently going through a “restructuring” that isn’t expected to be completed until May, which means there won’t be any K-1 or DREAM events until at least July, if ever. FEG USA’s Mike Kogan confirms that high-profile fighters such as Alistair Overeem and JZ Cavalcante have yet to be paid as they claim. In other words, nothing has changed yet.

— Rumors of former PRIDE director Nobuyuki Sakakibara’s return to JMMA have begun to surface in Japan. Word is that Sakakibara is working with DREAM’s Hiroyuki Kato and former Sengoku event producer Takahiro Kokuho are planning a one-off event at a small venue the size of 3,000 seat JCB Hall sometime this Spring. While a small show doesn’t seem like a big deal on the surface, Herbertson explains why it is.

If these sources are correct, this event would change the face of Japanese MMA dramatically.

Firstly, it would most likely mean the end of DREAM and that there has been a split between Real Entertainment and FEG. This is not surprising at all and was bound to happen with the poor ratings, poor finances and with K-1 creator Kazuyoshi Ishii (although Ishii may be squeezed out in the current FEG restructuring) out of jail.

It’s the return of Nobuyuki Sakakibara to MMA that is simply mind boggling.

The Sakakibara back-story is complicated, but in short, no one understands how anyone would want to be involved with Sakakibara when his ties to the yakuza (that brought down PRIDE) will send any potential business partners and sponsors in the other direction.

In addition to Herbertson’s report, I also suggest checking out Zach Arnold’s thoughts on Sakakibara’s rumored return.

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While FEG continues to search for a life raft, both the UFC and Strikeforce are looking to cross the Pacific and stage events in Japan in 2011.

The UFC held a press conference in Japan yesterday to announce new media deals with NTT Plala and TV Bank.

“I’m really thrilled by this opportunity to bring the global leader of mixed martial arts — the Ultimate Fighting Championship — and build it in a region where many martial arts originated. Japan is the most advanced and important market for us in Asia so far,” Zuffa LLC Asia Executive Vice President and Managing Director Mark Fischer said in a statement to the press. “This is a very important steps for the growth of the UFC in Japan. Our new media platforms will enable more fans across Japan to access exciting UFC action, news, highlights and features in more ways than ever before.”

These deals will essentially give Japanese fight fans the opportunity to view UFC content through their cell phones and other platforms. As BE’s Leland Roling explains, this is a bigger deal in Japan that it would be in the US due to the technological advantages Japan has over this country.

The deal is mostly aimed at bringing the UFC’s brand to consumers through the smartphone market, a market that is highly-popular in Japan in comparison to most countries. Some of the amazing things I’ve seen from Japanese smartphone technology would absolutely blow away some of the things we have here in the United States, mainly due to the technological advantages Japan has with a lower overall population than our own. The ability to have large download rates with less people clogging the network is one of the big reasons why Japanese fans will have and have had the ability to stream live events to their mobile devices.

The deal, in conjunction with their current satellite cable deal with WOWOW, is a multi-tiered attack in trying to get brand saturation in the region. NTT Plala will provide video-on-demand services through Hikari TV, giving fans access to events not available on WOWOW such as Versus and UFC Fight Night cards. Japanese fans can also re-live the glory days of PRIDE through the service.

This of course is just one step in the UFC’s plan to immerse the Japanese with their brand of mixed martial arts. The endgame is hold live events and that’s something Mark Fischer, the head of the UFC’s Asia division, believes is a possibility by the end of the year.

“We definitely want to hold a major event in Japan as soon as possible,” he said. “I would say that we’re not ready to announce anything yet but that we’re hoping to have an event later this year or early next year in Japan.”

“It’s a step-by-step process. It doesn’t happen overnight. We want to build up a good fan base, grow our media exposure, and we want fighters from different nationalities in the UFC before marketing to that nation and bringing in the big event.

“That big event will be more successful then, and I think that’s what we’re doing here in Japan.”

Of course, the big elephant in the room is the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime organization that poisoned PRIDE. It’s unclear how their past (and perhaps present?) involvement in the Japanese fight industry will factor into the UFC’s quest to break into the Japanese MMA market, but their mere presence certainly isn’t scaring them away. When Dana White was last asked about it, he bluntly stated “they’re going to have to kill me” to stop the UFC from coming to Japan. Mark Fischer was more eloquent when he addressed the concern yesterday.

“I think the landscape is very good. I think we all know that it was maybe tainted a little bit by some of the MMA events and things surrounding them that may have gone on up until now, but I think it’s critical that people understand that the UFC is above all that and stands for excellence in the sport.”

The UFC isn’t the only major US-based organization eyeing Japan. Strikeforce, who formed a formal strategic alliance with DREAM last year, is also looking at putting on an event in Japan in 2011, specifically for a leg of their heavyweight grand prix.

“We’re having a couple conversations right now and we definitely want to travel to Canada at some point, which we’re working on,” Coker said. “We’d definitely like to take one leg of the tournament at some point, it doesn’t have to be the next one or it could be the semifinals or maybe even the fights, but we’d like to eventually this year take one of those legs to Japan.”

“I just feel like with all the stars that we have and the fan base there for these fighters over there, I mean these fighters have a ton of fans in Japan,” said Coker. “Why not go there and bring Strikeforce to Japan some time this year?”

Coker didn’t address it, but most believe Japan is more of a contingency plan for Strikeforce in case Josh Barnett can’t get licensed in the US.

With Scott Coker’s long-standing relationship with the folks at FEG, a Strikeforce event in Japan seems like a stronger possibility this year than a UFC event is. Of course, if FEG is sold off in the coming months, who knows how that might impact Strikeforce’s ability to stage an event there. The UFC and Strikeforce seem to have different goals in Japan, but neither is short on obstacles to overcome. It will be very interesting to see how both organizations navigate Japan’s notoriously murky waters.

Images via Esther Lin for MMA Fighting. Check out her full gallery at MMAFighting.com.

Rundown of post-fight news and notes from UFC 118…

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