Zach Arnold is one of my favorite fight bloggers and the only guy out there I know who consistently has his pulse on the scene in Japan. Most others who claim to are over-eager fanboys who don’t even know what the kanji tattoo on their right shoulder blade means let alone know the language enough to follow the country’s sports periodicals.

In his latest post, Arnold discusses a litany of really shocking and sad topics, including but not limited to Satoshi Ishii receiving a cerebral edema at the hands of Fedor on New Year’s Eve that may have ended his career (if he knows what’s good for him), K-1′s being all but dead, and yet another financial scandal involving professional wrestlers and Yakuza money marks.

It also touches on how all these factors are making the UFC’s foray into the country (PREVIOUSLY: What’s the UFC thinking with its Japanese card?) a risky proposition:

UFC is not going to fill the vacuum that has been left behind by the carcasses of PRIDE & K-1 and that’s a real shame on a lot of levels. While there are plenty of smaller shows (like DEEP coming up at Tokyo Dome City Hall), the large-scale environment for a big Japanese show is toast right now. It’s terrible. The Japanese fight scene has had such a rich history of producing serious, mega-level events and to see what has happened is an utter disappointment. However, it’s been a disappointment that has been man-made by many crooks and egotistical bastards who became too clever for their own good. The major players made their beds and they have to lay in them. They just didn’t know that they were death beds.

Read more (FightOpinion.com)