How Beat Takeshi would like to kick ass on New Year's Eve

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=shukan&id=203

How Takeshi would like to kick ass on New Year's Eve

Beat Takeshi gives us an insight into what to expect from the TV
ratings battle on New Year's Eve.

If you are spending the night at home in front of the tube, make sure
the remote control is handy. Besides my show on UFOs, NHK will have
its Kohaku (Red and White) singing contest going up against the
fighters of Pride on Fuji TV, K1 Dynamite (TBS) and Inoki Festival
(Nippon TV).

The biggest drawcard is undoubtedly K1 Dynamite, in which former sumo
champion Akebono will make his debut against K1 star Bob Sapp.

It is being billed as the fight of the century (wow, long century, so
far), but I doubt if it will be such an enjoyable spectacle. Even to
my unsophisticated, unprofessional eyes in the fighting field, it is
easy to imagine that the weak knees of Akebono aren't going to help
him very much against man mountain Sapp.

I remember another former sumo champion, Wajima, who tried his hand at
pro wrestling after retiring from sumo. He was the center of attention
leading up to his debut, then he flopped. I suspect Akebono is going
to turn tail and run, too, once he gets in the ring with Sapp. One is
from football and the other is from sumo. All Akebono can do is just
charge forward in attack. He has no killer technique, so I cannot
imagine how he's going to survive.

Still, it was a good idea to get Akebono involved in the New Year's
Eve extravaganza, but I guess his promotion agency doesn't know how to
use him. What does a retired sumo star do? It's a question facing
another retired sumo grand champion, Musashimaru, who announced his
retirement after the November tournament in Kyushu.

Since anything goes in K1, he should jump on the bandwagon, too. If he
joined K1 or Pride, he could earn billions of yen just by signing a
contract with either of them. Even it is called a match, you can still
make money even if you have the crap kicked out of you and end up face
down. No one will complain about his suitability for K1; they just
want to see one contestant get his ass kicked.

Beside Musashimaru, I think there are other potential K1 characters in
Japan's sporting ranks. Former sumo champion siblings Takanohana and
Wakanohana are great examples. Professional baseball players such as
Kiyohara from the Giants and Irabu from the Hanshin Tigers are
aggressive enough to fight in the ring. How about basketball's
Okayama? How about they all become K1 fighters just for New Years Eve?
Great idea, eh?

Let the idol singers slug it out

Matching super idol group Morning Musume against the boys' group V6
would get the highest ratings ever and fill the arena to capacity. The
only rule would be they keep fighting until they have lost their
underwear. The audience would go wild and we'd probably see a huge
riot.

OK, getting back to the TV lineup, there's always my show on TV Asahi.
We will do the same old crap as last year — a documentary on UFOs. We
will go in search of aliens. Come on, give me a break. What a dumb
idea.

As usual, Junichiro Nirasawa, a senior editor at publishing firm Tama,
who truly believes in the existence of UFOs, and Yoshihiko Otsuki, a
professor at Waseda University who debunks them, will debate the issue
over and over.

If we hope to win the ratings battle, we've got to do something
different this time. We've been advertising our show as a UFO program,
but what if we incorporated the fighting concept? Nirasawa and Otsuki
could argue their opinions in a ring, wearing boxing gloves and
actually hitting each other. It would be a hoot watching them go at
it.

Of course, we'll need an alien to help us out. So we could go to the
Tomoko Inagawa talent agency, which specializes in foreigners, and
assemble some foreigners in alien get-up. Japanese audiences won't be
able to tell the difference anyway. In addition to that, we can fly
1,000 radio-controlled UFO models over Tokyo that night.

As a last resort, we could always do what Nippon TV did and manipulate
ratings. Of course, considering the standard of our show, if our
ratings went up over 50%, it would be obvious that something funny was
going on.

Anyway, it's certain that viewers will be busy with their remote
controls zapping around from the same old Kohaku, fight shows and my
UFO special on New Year's Eve. (Translated by Sachie Kanda)

December 3, 2003
--
Consequences, shmonsequences, as long as I'm rich.  - D. Duck