Yes, but Sky PerfecTV is a PPV outlet; Fuji TV is a television outlet, which means the japanese have to pay money to see Pride. And a friend of mine who writes for mma and pro wrestling made a great point about the FSN deal:
"But, you may be wrong, Seal. Sometimes "no TV" IS better than "any TV." If PRIDE has to pay for the time they have on FSN, then it IS worse because it's allowing them to burn money at an even faster clip! (i don't think they are paying, though)."
And he had more to say here:
"Fuji was free. Similar to NBC or CBS. Skyperfect is a PPV company, as far as I know. And Samurai might show PRIDE stuff as well, but i'm not sure. But obviously the latter two have 1/10000th the penetration. as bryan has noted in f4w~!, PPV isn't really "big" in japan right now. i think the record for buys is around 100K or so." -- keep in mine that's the record, not an average! To break even in the U.S., a PPV needs to accumulate 50,000 buys. I'm not sure what the break-even margin is in Japan; it may be 50,000, as well.
"that's the record. for a long time it was royce/saku at around 110000. i think it was broken recently. it just isn't the culture. in america, we're used to paying for the big fights. in japan, they're used to getting them for free.
i have NO clue what the break even is over there. i don't even know what they charge for PPVs."
And don't get excited about a UFC/Pride "Superbowl" yet. Look at the latest headline:
http://calsun.canoe.ca/Sports/OtherSports/2006/08/11/1744255-sun.html
It appears the much-anticipated mixed martial arts bout between rival champions Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva, scheduled for November, might be off.
"I don't even know if Silva's going to happen," said Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He cited problems in dealing with the Japan-based Pride Fighting Championships that is home to Silva.
White said UFC 65 will instead probably feature Liddell against Tito Ortiz in a rematch of UFC 47 in 2004.
The Liddell-Silva bout was considered a blockbuster matchup, finally bringing the rival UFC and Pride organizations together
This isn't the first time PRIDE and UFC have come to an agreement, only for PRIDE to never live up to their end of the deal (see Nobuhiko Takada appearing on UFC PPV announcing that PRIDE would be sending Kazuyuki Fujita and Kazushi Sakuraba).