Is Badr Hari too financially valuable for K-1 to suspend?

Written by Lyman Hoyt   |   Sunday, December 14 2008

The ref in the K-1 World GP Final match brandishes a red card to disqualify Badr Hari.  He may be the only person involved willing to subjugate profits to the integrity of the sport

Japanese fight sports are a bizarre dichotomy of high and low, often within the same promotion.  On the high end, you’ve got the best competitors in the world in MMA, kickboxing, sumo and judo.  The state of the art in pro wrestling (puroresu) can be found in Japan with techniques that are literally years ahead of their US counterparts.  On the low end, you’ve got an appetite for the surreal, bizarre and downright absurd that would challenge the credulity of a circa 1970’s US pro wrestling promoter.  In MMA, this taste for “freak show” type fights has produced matchups between the world’s best fighter, Fedor Emelianeko, and overmatched curiosities like Hong-Man Choi and Kamala the Ugandan Giant doppelganger Zuluzinho.  In pro wrestling, Japan blazed the trail for “garbage wrestling” involving barbed wire, broken glass, explosive devices and countless other destructive implements.

The duality of Japan’s love for fighting at the highest level and that of a good “trainwreck” has shaped the response of K-1 parent FEG to Badr Hari in the aftermath of the World GP Finals.  Hari, as you’ll recall, was disqualified in the championship match after launching a ground attack consisting of punches and stomps against Remy Bonjasky.  After the fight his “heel” antics continued both in the ring when he and his entourage refused to leave until Melvin Manhouf talked some sense into them and in the media where Hari openly questioned Bonjasky’s manhood and showed no remorse for his behavior.  Immediately after the event, FEG President Sadaharu Tanikawa read Hari the proverbial riot act suggesting that his actions were “unforgivable”, “unprecedented” and “outrageous”.   He then assured Japanese fight fans that Hari would receive the “strictest possible” sanctions.

Not long after, the sports media started to report on what Tanikawa meant by the “strictest possible” sanctions.  Sources indicated that the decision had been made to strip Hari of his K-1 Heavyweight Title and to suspend him “indefinitely”.  This was met with approval by Japanese media members and fight fans who reflect their country’s obsession with order, propriety and the rule of law.  There’s certainly plenty of sycophantic Hari fans outside of Japan who basically share his sentiment that he did nothing wrong and that Bonjasky is somehow to blame, but his fans inside the country by and large agreed with K-1’s decision in light of his behavior at the World GP Finals.  The operational plan at this point was to work out the necessary logistics of the suspension and the steps that would be taken to fill the heavyweight championship, and that a formal announcement from K-1/FEG would be forthcoming at that time.
Despite K-1’s assurances that Hari would be dealt with post haste, a week passed and no formal announcement regarding his status was given by FEG/K-1.  During that week, rumors began to circulate that FEG wasn’t immediately forthcoming with the announcement of Hari’s sanctions because they were trying to find an opponent for him to face on the New Years’ Eve Fields Dynamite! show.  The rumored opponents ranged from the obvious (Peter Aerts) to the interesting (Mirko Cro Cop) to the absurd (Kimbo Slice).  Many American fans that had been following the situation were left scratching their head as to why FEG would simultaneously be trying to punish and promote Hari.

Welcome to the crazy, schizophrenic and largely unregulated world of fighting in Japan.  FEG’s bimodal response to the situation makes perfect sense in this “Bizarro World” as they very likely intended to suspend Hari immediately, only to realize that they now had the biggest “villain” in Japan under contract.  Fight promotion 101 dictates that there’s no easier way to make money than to have a hated “heel” that ticket buyers hope will receive their comeuppance.  At this point, FEG is testing the prevailing wind of public opinion trying to determine if the potential financial upside of booking Hari for Dynamite! is worth the downside hit to their credibility and in public opinion.   If they can find a suitable opponent on short notice to make the fight sufficiently lucrative, they’ll do it.  If not, or if FEG determines that the desire among fight fans to see Hari catch a beating isn’t there they’ll go ahead with plans to suspend him.  Alternately, they could do a combination of the two if they determine that Hari is worth too much to them in the ring to suspend him.  In that case, look for FEG to strip Hari of the heavyweight title but not suspend him. 

The notion that a fight promotion can be judge, jury and executioner in a situation like this is mind boggling enough for American fans.  That the same promotion would be weighing a potential financial gain against doing what is nominally “good for the sport” even more so.  So how do they get away with playing both sides of the fence regarding Hari?  In Japan, there’s no one to stop them from doing so.  Had the event taken place in Las Vegas instead of Yokohama, the Nevada State Athletic Commission would have been the arbiter of Hari’s case.  While most state athletic commissions have an appeals procedure, that notwithstanding FEG would have to abide by whatever the NSAC decided vis a vis Hari.  Even so, the only real compulsion that the NSAC or other state commissions have is their reciprocal arrangement where a suspension in one state is honored by all other jurisdictions.  If K-1 had no future plans to promote in the US, or if Hari had no interest in fighting here, they could pretty much do what they wanted.  That’s precisely the situation surrounding former EliteXC heavyweight champion Antonio Silva.  He tested positive for steroids after winning the title and was suspended for a year by the California State Athletic Commission.  In the meantime, EliteXC folded and Silva signed to appear on the year end Sengoku card.   If he did want to fight in the US again he’d have a lot of explaining to do, but he’s clearly taking the calculated risk that he can maintain a viable career elsewhere.  As long as he stays out of the US, there’s really nothing that can be done to stop him from fighting.

So basically FEG can do what they want with Hari free from any official oversight.  The only entities to hold them accountable for anything are the Japanese fight media and fans.  The mainstream sports media in Japan couldn’t care less.  Remember how the mainstream media got their collective panties in a wad over the “fixing” allegations surrounding the Seth Petruzelli/Kimbo Slice fight?  That wouldn’t happen in Japan.  On balance, the mainstream sports media has a greater understanding and appreciation of fight sports (both real and “worked”) but at the same time lets them operate in their own little world complete with their own “ethical vacuum”.   It would take something on the level of a huge organized crime scandal to get the mainstream media to concern themselves with fighting.  Even so, there’s no guarantee that anything would come of it.  You may recall the sumo fixing scandal of a few years ago; consider that sumo is Japan’s national sport and that the outcry from the relevant media outlets was surprisingly muted.

The fight sport media will occasionally gripe about something, but they’ve got a very short memory.   They may not be as compliant to the promotions as the US fight media is to the UFC, but in some ways they’re very similar to the pro wrestling “kayfabe era” relationship between the newsstand magazines and the promotions.  The promotions see the newsstand magazines as a way to “get over” storylines, fighters and events.  The various publications that cover fighting aren’t predisposed to take a stand on principle for much the same reason that K-1 is dragging their feet dealing with the Hari situation; more often than not they can make more money by playing along. 

The mentality of the Japanese sports fans in general, and fight fans in particular, are drastically different from their American counterparts.  US fans live and die by a sense that sports should reflect a set of higher values that to some extent reflect the values that they ascribe to their country as a whole.  To put it another way, American sports fans are always concerned that offenses big and small will impugn the “integrity of the sport”.  That’s the default response to anything atypical that might happen to change a sport, large or small. The worst thing that any player, coach, or general manager can be accused of is behavior that is “detrimental” to the sport in question. 

In Japan, fans don’t take the larger societal implications of the sports they follow so seriously.  They’re seen as a diversion and as entertainment and operate under the same lax set of expectations more typically associated with actors or movie stars.  Within the context of their other social “taboos”, a Japanese sports fan is as likely to get outraged by a baseball player alleged to have taken steroids as a Motley Crue fan is at the realization that the band’s best work was done while under the influence of drugs. 

The bottom line to the Japanese fight fan base in particular is that as long as they’re getting the fights they want to see they’ll be happy.  The nature of the Japanese outrage toward Badr Hari was less about a perceived blow to “the integrity of the sport” and more about the way his actions disrupted the proper resolution of the event.  The statements from K-1 fighters and officials immediately after the event notwithstanding, the primary reason for anger toward Hari in Japan is because he “screwed up the show”. 

K-1 would like to suspend Hari more because he is in their eyes a “bad employee” than because of any perceived “damage” to the sport or their promotion, but if they determine they can make a lot of money by not suspending him that’s the course of action they’ll pursue.  Alternately, they may determine that suspending him for a period of time might make him an even bigger “heel” and a more compelling box office draw upon his return.  That money is the driving force behind the fight game is not uniquely Japanese, but the ability for a promotion to not have to pretend otherwise most definitely is.

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