Fuji’s “RIZIN” New Year’s Eve Cancellation and the Arrest of City Councilor Yoshiba Heavier than Anti-Shaido News

Fuji Television announced on its website that it will broadcast the popular variety show “Escape on the Run” on New Year’s Eve this year. This is the first time the show will be broadcast on New Year’s Eve.

The show is about a group of people who are running away from a man in black, called a “hunter,” in a predetermined area, in order to win a prize.

Speaking of Fuji Television, from ’15 to last year they broadcast the mixed martial arts event “RIZIN” on New Year’s Eve. Popular fighters such as Mirai Asakura, who recently fought Floyd Mayweather in an exhibition match, and his younger brother Umi Asakura, as well as You Tuber Shiba, participated in the show. It was a high-profile event with no shortage of topics, both good and bad, such as the “eight-fighting scandal” involving a prearranged meeting with an opponent.

However, this year the event was riddled with scandal.

Post Seven” reported on the problems with RIZIN’s representative, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, revealing conversations in which Sakakibara was aware of the involvement of a gangster as an official of RIZIN.

Although Sakakibara denies any association with Sansha, he was reported to have been involved with a gang in the mixed martial arts “PRIDE” in 2006, and Fuji Television pulled out of broadcasting the event,” said a TV station official.

This was followed up by the arrest of Neyagawa City Councilor Yoshiba Mika for fraud. She was once hailed by the mass media as a “beautiful city councilor,” and it was reported that she had invested 400 million yen in RIZIN.

Yoshiba defrauded medical institutions of more than 1 billion yen by telling them that they would not have to repay the money if they went through her. She was a Neyagawa City Council member and proudly “promoted herself” as the CEO of the company investing in RIZIN on SNS, etc. She posted photos of herself with popular fighter Koji and other celebrities on SNS.

The photo of the weigh-in shows dozens of athletes, with the representative, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, in the center, and defendant Yoshiba right next to him. The act of cheating money by abusing public financing for the new Corona is a serious crime, especially since taxpayers’ money is involved. One wonders if Mr. Sakakibara ever wondered how a Neyagawa city council member could have invested 400 million yen….

If RIZIN was using the money to cheat a medical institution out of a huge sum of money by telling lies while the institution was suffering from the COVID-19 crisis, it would not be tolerated. There is no way that matches held by such an organization could be broadcast on terrestrial TV. Right now, “Abema” is streaming the matches online via PPV depending on the match, but “Is it OK if it’s online?” There remains the compliance question, “Is it OK if it’s on the Internet?

I think Sakakibara should take the responsibility, but he has the presence that only he can realize super big matches such as the one between Mayweather and Tenshin Nasukawa and Takeson…” (Sports newspaper reporter)

Fuji TV has parted ways with the killer content of “RIZIN. How well will “Escape from Japan” do on New Year’s Eve?