Post by lordakiyama on Mar 23, 2012 21:47:03 GMT -5
Courtesy of Dave Meltzer at Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Online
Pro Wrestling NOAH just announced that General Manager Ryu Nakata and Counselor Haruka Eigen had ties to the Yakuza from 2003 to 2010, working with them to sell tickets to the company's live events.
All of the major Japanese media covered the story, which will give the promotion a bad public image. Virtually every promotion in sports and entertainment in Japan has Yakuza tie-ins, but it's probably best analogized like the steroid issue in sports in the U.S. It's commonplace in every major sport, deep down everyone knows it, but if it comes out that somebody used it publicly, it's a black mark against them. Pride went down largely because of these revelations.
Exactly how this will fall out is unknown, but expect fall out very quickly.
Pro Wrestling NOAH just announced that General Manager Ryu Nakata and Counselor Haruka Eigen had ties to the Yakuza from 2003 to 2010, working with them to sell tickets to the company's live events.
All of the major Japanese media covered the story, which will give the promotion a bad public image. Virtually every promotion in sports and entertainment in Japan has Yakuza tie-ins, but it's probably best analogized like the steroid issue in sports in the U.S. It's commonplace in every major sport, deep down everyone knows it, but if it comes out that somebody used it publicly, it's a black mark against them. Pride went down largely because of these revelations.
Exactly how this will fall out is unknown, but expect fall out very quickly.
