‘The Smashing Machine’ talks PRIDE FC and the Yakuza. The Tokyo Dome, home to some of the loudest crowds and wildest nights in the world of mixed martial arts, used to buzz with more than just fight-night jitters. In the early 2000s, PRIDE FC was at its peak, with international stars, monumental showdowns, and – if you asked anyone in the know – a little undercurrent of organized crime.
PRIDE FC and The Yakuza From The Smashing Machine
PRIDE FC, running from 1997 to 2007, wasn’t just Japan’s answer to the UFC – It was bigger. It was a spectacle, a stage for unforgettable bouts, and, according to persistent whispers, a magnet for the Yakuza, the country’s storied organized crime syndicates. For years, the Yakuza’s supposed influence was the worst-kept secret in the business. Fighters, journalists, and fans traded stories: mysterious men backstage, money flowing in odd directions, and an iron curtain separating the star athletes from the less-photographed power brokers in the shadows.
Mark Kerr, the subject of the acclaimed documentary “The Smashing Machine” and a fighter who lived through PRIDE’s wild heyday, cut straight to the point in a recent interview. “Yakuza rumors… A lot of that was kind of kept away. It really was. You would walk through the corridors behind, say, the Tokyo Dome and you had one room that was a bunch of Japanese guys smoking and you’d walk past it, there’d be a guy standing at the door… they didn’t go in front of the cameras, they didn’t go out in the crowd, but they were there at the venue. You knew they were there at the venue. Right?”
For athletes like Kerr, the unwritten rule was clear: stick to business, stay in the right hallways, and don’t get too curious about the folk who didn’t bother with fight tickets or media passes. “I had a handler that made sure I did not get near Mr. Ishihaka, there’s no pictures, no nothing.” If the Yakuza’s greatest trick was disappearing from the public eye, their second-greatest was keeping the fighters carefully out of their own.
Now, about those names: “Mr. Ishihaka” was a ghost figure, often confused in the press with Mr. Ishizaka, real name Kim Dok Soo, a Korean-Japanese Yakuza underworld boss who, insiders say, briefly controlled PRIDE after the suspicious death of executive Naoto Morishita in 2003. The organization’s management saw regular shake-ups, apparently mirroring a power struggle that played out far from the cage, involving not just Ishizaka but also early backer Hiromichi Momose and K-1 founder Kazuyoshi Ishii. Ishii’s own promotion, the kickboxing juggernaut K-1, faced similar rumors: unmarked doors, fixer-led deals, and legal trouble over tax evasion.
Handlers made sure fighters like Kerr kept their distance. “As many times as I’ve been to Japan, with all the photographers there, nobody ever took a picture with me and Mr. Ishihaka… He was the first president… The guy I was associated with was a Korean dude, he signed everything Kim Dok and everyone in Japan called him Mr. Ishihaka. Mr. Ishi owned K1… but you’d have handlers making sure there were no pictures, no nothing.”
The rumors were more than locker room gossip. In 2006, when Japan’s weekly magazine Shukan Gendai ran exposés linking PRIDE’s management to organized crime, sponsors and TV broadcasters headed for the exits. Fuji TV, which broadcast PRIDE’s greatest nights, canceled its contract. Suddenly, the financial backbone of the organization snapped, and in 2007, PRIDE was sold to Zuffa, ending an era.
K-1 didn’t escape, either. Founder Kazuyoshi Ishii was arrested for tax evasion, fueling suspicions about backroom deals, secret payments to fighters, and contracts written by the kinds of fixers usually reserved for noir films. The parade of “unofficial” bosses faded out, but the cloud never quite lifted.
None of this, the handlers would want you to know, ever officially happened. Most admissions are between the lines and inside interviews like Kerr’s, or are woven through documentaries such as “The Smashing Machine.”
“The Smashing Machine” is also a biographical film, releasing on October 3, 2025, produced by A24, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
