The legal battle between Seiya Kawamata and Nippon Network Television Corporation is over, and it didn’t end as anticipated.
Kawamata had filed a lawsuit in Tokyo District Court against Nippon Network Television Corporation for an annulment of payment by NTV in regards to the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye television contract in 2003. It was expected by industry insiders that Kawamata would win his lawsuit against NTV, but in a surprise turn of events, courts have ruled that Nippon TV’s annulment of the contract was appropriate.
In December of 2003, Nippon Television and Kawamata agreed to a contract to produce three MMA supercards on New Year’s Eve for three years, beginning in 2003. The contract stipulated that Kawamata’s production company, K Confidence, would acquire 800 million yen, approximately $7.5 million US dollars at the time, for Nippon TV’s acquisition of the broadcasting and production rights of three events.
However, the 2003 Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye event was a notorious failure on New Year’s Eve, being demolished in the television ratings by the competing PRIDE Otoko Matsuri and K-1 Dynamite!! events. PRIDE’s New Year’s Eve telecast on Fuji Television grabbed a 12.5% rating, while K-1’s December 31st card on Tokyo Broadcasting System took a commanding 19.5%. The Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye event on Nippon TV drew a paltry 5.1% rating. After the failure of the event, NTV cancelled the contract, citing the show’s failure.
Following the contract cancellation, Kawamata fled Japan without paying a variety of expenses, including the purses of various fighters, and went into hiding for nearly half a year. As a result, power agent Miro Mijatovic was forced to pay fighters such as Semmy Schilt, Alistair Overeem and Stefan Leko out of his own pocket. This past April, Mijatovic was awarded a complete victory in the Tokyo District Court in his civil suit against Kawamata for the unpaid earnings from Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2003.
Kawamata’s disappearance and the subsequent civil suit against him were a result of Nippon TV’s annulment of their contract with Kawamata. Theannulment, which resulted in a reduced payment of 200 million yen to Kawamata’s K Confidence production company, resulted in Kawamata’s inability to pay outstanding bills and debts incurred as a result of the massive failure of the Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye event.
The Tokyo District Court ruled today that it was legally valid and apropos for Nippon Network Television Corporation to void the deal, on account of the fact that Kawamata was unable to produce the services of the wildly popular Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic for Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2003, and that the show had drawn such poor ratings.
It is at this point what the ramifications of the verdict will be, as the once powerful promoter Kawamata’s whereabouts are still currently unknown, in addition to rumors of Kawamata being in dire financial circumstances.
Well, it’s late in the day and the end of summer (more or less), so we thought today would be a fine day to do the last ever nose job endorsement.
Thankfully, things should be ramping up on the NBA and the Who Shot Mamba? front soon.
(Admission: part of the Mamba delay is our intention to ride the wave of the preseason for exposure purposes. Why debut during the lowest traffic month of the year, both for the net and the NBA? That said, August was our second biggest month ever, so who knows.)
Remember Luke Walton’s day on the Young and the Restless? Here it is. (via Deadspin)
That was the most pointless scene ever - seriously. We could see sticking that in your show if you’ve snagged Michael Jordan or Kobe or something, but you waste a minute and a half of your precious airtime for Luke to do that?
See, Luke’s been there before, and he knows that good old Beverly Hills rhinoplasty can really throw your game off.
We’ve got a serious problem here, in that we used the whole “get your rhino plastered” schtick yesterday, leaving us with nothing. Could we insert another animal? Maybe another plasterish material, like a paper mache type deal?
Or…we could give up and link you to this super-creepy picture of John Travolta kissing some dude goodbye.
Now. We don’t want to cast aspersions. We know how life in an NFL locker room goes. You’re with each other for half the year, sweating, bleeding, killing yourself out there for the sake of a common goal. You develop a kinship that cannot be quantified by any conventional standards.
You are football players. You are MEN.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Chris Simms had such a bond with receivers coach Kyle (son of Mike) Shanahan, with whom he played at the University of Texas. In fact … they really have a bond.
Chris Simms and Kyle Shanahan became such good friends at the University of Texas that they have their initials tattooed on each other’s lower leg. … Both players remember when they went with three other close friends and UT teammates — tight end Bo Scaife, defensive back Rod Babers and receiver Montrell Flowers — to get their tattoos. “Kyle was a real wimp about it,” Simms said
That’s right: They have each other’s initials tattooed on each other’s lower leg. We’re really not sure how to handle this information.
We are officially less than a month before the start of the NFL season, so it’s probably time to start previewing the monster. The key to the NFL’s success — other than fantasy football and gambling, of course — is the rabid nature of its fans. That is to say: You don’t see a lot of people painting their faces for their favorite golfer.
We asked a gaggle of writers, from the Web, from print, from books, even a TV guy or two, to tell us, in as many or as little words as they need, why My Team Is Better Than Your Team. This is not meant to be factual, or dispassionate, or even logical: We just asked them to riff on why they love their team so much, or what their team means to them, or whatever. We will be running two a day until the beginning of the NFL season.
Right now: the Chicago Bears. Your author is Mike Cetera.
Mike Cetera is the opinions editor at the Aurora Beacon-News. His words are after the jump.
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Blame me. Or rather, I should say, blame all of us who allow the Chicago Bears to use the past as a diversionary tactic to take our minds off the game. Remember Moses Moreno, Henry Burris and Jonathan Quinn? These were all recent Bears starting quarterbacks. It’s hard to keep track of all the names; some 15 have shuffled in and out of the starting lineup in the last decade. No, we quickly forget these forgettable mistakes at the most important position on the field. We’re too busy talking about THE GREATEST TEAM EVER, the Super Bowl XX champs, and the Bears have done little to discourage our conversation. This team thrives on the deke, like the running back that uses a head fake to scoot by and embarrass a weak defensive back.
The aging former athletes who brought us Super Bowl glory are still among the most popular personalities in town. They have their own talk shows, and they own restaurants with their names ablaze in lights. We idolize this team and romanticize the coach who famously told anyone who dared cross him where to stick it (”You see this,” Mike Ditka once said to a reporter while curving his thumb and index finger into the shape of a zero. “That’s your IQ, buddy.” Clever.).
Gosh, they’re great. Too bad that was two decades ago, and most who played for the Super Bowl Bears now qualify for AARP benefits. Too bad the fans never seem to realize this, either. We are all enablers for this addiction to the past.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My qualifications here are questionable. I have not written a novel (nor, just to be clear, have I slept with the Deadspin editor); I worship the stat, but cannot claim to comprehend the VORP rate; I have never fabricated the story of my life to make a buck or win the empathy of others; I am a Cubs fan.
It is this last characteristic that makes my worldview particularly susceptible to unreasonable fits of optimism. My name is Mike C., and my glass is half full. This is why, as each new season dawns, I’m sure the Cubs will win the World Series despite blinding evidence to the contrary. And so, too, it goes with the Bears. But, again, this isn’t just my problem. This entire fan base is delusional.
Never mind that the Bears have been bad for so long (2005 doesn’t count) that the kids born when the team last deserved to be in the playoffs are in college. Never mind that the team has a historical aversion to competent quarterbacks. Never mind that every year we’re presented with a new version of the same offense, one that curiously relies on the defense to score points.
None of these things matter. It is a new season, a fresh start. Quarterback woes be damned. That tiny controversy about Cedric Benson’s teammates perhaps intentionally injuring him because they like Thomas Jones and they don’t like him? This means nothing. That the two have combined for three rushing yards in the preseason? No worries.
We should not concern ourselves with pesky details like who should be the starting running back … or the starting quarterback for that matter. Oh, that time will come — probably in the second quarter of the first home game when the fans in the stands start a rallying cry for whichever QB is second string that day. We love the underdog, you see. It doesn’t matter if the guy backing up the guy is actually any good. By will alone, the fans will make him a Pro Bowler. Kind of like what happened with Kyle Orton.
Oh, this franchise is smart. They tease us with a stifling defense, which only reminds us of what we had. But let me tell you, Chris Harris, you sir are no Gary Fencik. Watching this defense, I just know it’s all a ruse. They really aren’t that good. Carolina proved it. And someone else is bound to expose Peanut Tillman just like Steve Smith did.
There I am living in the past again. It is a new year, another opportunity for a return to greatness. So what am I, and the rest of this team’s fans, supposed to make of the 2006 Chicago Bears? They are going to shuffle all the way to the Super Bowl. And win, of course.
We’d like to thank The Basketball Jones for this arcane piece of beauty, featuring the Fresh Prince playing an imaginary game against a guy who just know he’ll try to sign someday.
Actually, “Renaldo Balkman” does sound like the type of guy who would hang out in Bel Air …
Electronic Arts has released estimates that show its yearly updated franchise, Madden, has just reached a new high: two million copies sold in the first week. EA says this is a record for a franchise that has been chugging along for 17 years now. A PR mouthpiece had this to say about the results: “Consumers are the most meaningful judge of game quality and based on sales and the record-setting online activity, our toughest critics think Madden NFL has delivered another great game experience.”
We guess it pays to be the only NFL game in town. For those of you that bought it, is Madden NFL 07 the best Madden ever?
Electronic Arts has released estimates that show its yearly updated franchise, Madden, has just reached a new high: two million copies sold in the first week. EA says this is a record for a franchise that has been chugging along for 17 years now. A PR mouthpiece had this to say about the results: “Consumers are the most meaningful judge of game quality and based on sales and the record-setting online activity, our toughest critics think Madden NFL has delivered another great game experience.”
We guess it pays to be the only NFL game in town. For those of you that bought it, is Madden NFL 07 the best Madden ever?
So you know how Lakers forward Luke Walton was supposed to make a guest appearance on “The Young & The Restless” earlier this week? Wait: You didn’t know that? What’s wrong with you?
Anyway, here’s Bill’s boy’s dramatic debut. It is, in a word … AW, THAT’S JUST TERRIBLE!
Now. We don’t want to cast aspersions. We know how life in an NFL locker room goes. You’re with each other for half the year, sweating, bleeding, killing yourself out there for the sake of a common goal. You develop a kinship that cannot be quantified by any conventional standards.
We are officially less than a month before the start of the NFL season, so it’s probably time to start previewing the monster. The key to the NFL’s success — other than fantasy football and gambling, of course — is the rabid nature of its fans. That is to say: You don’t see a lot of people painting their faces for their favorite golfer.
