BAD INTENTIONS wrote:I'm interested in watching some Japanese boxing.
Where?
How?
When?
Why is this market hidden?
Hey,
You have a lot of options as to "how?" and "where?" now.
Firstly you have illegal streams, I won't post too much on those but there are some websites out there that do stream Japanese TV. It's not as good as 2 years ago when we had things like Niji TV running live and a few similar apps, but there are still streams out there from a few sites.
You have the two pay services Boxingraise and Asign Boxing-
Boxingraise is a subscription service run by Dangan and put on one or two live shows a month (next one is the Takuya Kogawa headlined card next week) along with allowing VoD of more than 20 shows. Their service has recorded shows added every few weeks and costs 980 (about £8/$10) a month. The shows here are typically domestic level cards, but some have come with OPBF and JBC titles. The services is good if you like prospects, with Hinata Maruta, Ken Shiro, Chaoz Minowa and a few others being featured, and good if you like a flat rate payment.
Sadly boxingraise runs their month from the first day to the last day of the month, so if you subscribe today you'll be paying out again on November 1st, their live content is limited and their schedule isn't clear unless you really follow the scene and know what shows are Dangan shows and which are Dangan promoted cards with TV deals (AKA "Diamond Glove cards") as the TV cards aren't included in the service.
Asign is more of a PPV platform with shows typically costing between 300 and 500 yen a piece, depending on the quality of the card. The service has had 3 shows this month costing a combined 1400 yen but of course you could easily choose not to buy all 3. The cards here are typically associated with Yokohama Hikari with their most recent card being the Matsumoto Vs Mitchell OPBF Super Middleweight title bout. Theirs been a good array of fighters, from prospects like Genki Hanai to veterans like Ryo Akaho, and the bouts on some cards are great, Abe Vs Tameda for example.
Sadly they don't seem to do live, their player is a bit buggy and it's hard as hell to sign up unless you have a Japanese name, as they make you give your name in Hiragana and Katakana. The shows are decent but it's hit and miss whats on there, notably you will have access to any shows you buy at any time, but you need to go on to their site to watch them.
An alternative is looking to see if the fight you want is here
http://www.asianboxing.info/videos , the list isn't set out perfectly but with a bit of time you can find pretty much every recent "free to air" fight on Japanese TV, as well as a variety of fan cam footage, footage from Korea and footage from Japan. The library is a mess but it's a huge one with several thousand videos, free to play. Well worth a look if you want to watch the latest fight with a notable name.
Of course if you're in Japan you can also watch on TV (you're obviously not but it is worth just mentioning this), with boxing shown on TBS, NTV, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo, which are all free to air, as well as G+, Fuji Next, TBS2, MBS, GAORA, WOWOW (which also show some Western fights) and the Sky channels, which are pay. G+, if you have access, is the bomb! It's worth noting that fighters are typically linked with a network, so Inoue, Yaegashi and Murata are Fuji, TBS have Tanaka and Ioka, NTV have Yamanaka, Tokyo have a deal with Watanabe (Uchiyama and Taguchi).
When is a bit more complicated, the asianboxing twitter tends to post details but things are a bit tricky. The pay services (Boxingraise and Asign) tend to put things up on a next day basis), live footage only comes on the free to air channels and G+, with even some of the big channels showing things on delay (a pain in the arse with results circulating online before they are shown!).
If you see a world title fight taking place in Japan the odds are it will be televised live/as live, if it's not a world title bout but features a notable fighter (think Hosono or Amagasa) it will likely be on tape delay.
General rule (if you can find the poster/show name)
"Dangan"-Shown on boxing raise
"Diamond Glove"-Shown on Fuji - Tape delay
"FES" - Shown on Fuji - Live
"Dynamite Punch" - Shown on Asign - Delay
Dynamic Glove - Shown on G+ - Delay and live
Guts Fighting- Shown on TBS - on delay
Soul Fighting - Shown on CBC in Nagoya - Often delay
Not a hard and fast rule, but a very general rule.
As for being hidden, the live fights get multiple million viewers, Yamanaka and Ioka draw over 10,000,000 Inoue and Murata aren't far behind. It's not so much hidden as lacking international broadcasts (except when a challenger is from a country that will pay to show their fighter - I.E. Thailand for Thai challengers). The issue has been raised with outlets who seem to think their is no market, though those same service are cutting back their boxing content (hi Sky, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Boxn@tion) who could be picking these shows up for delay broadcasts at a cheaper price than a live show, dubbing commentary over and giving their boxing schedules a boost, whilst also showing case some fan friendly styles. Hopefully though a mushroom in interest in the west will see some TV things giving it a chance, as their scene is red hot at the moment.
