We’ll be using the HDNet feed tonight and hopefully it’ll be better than their debut DREAM effort. Hard for it to be worse. We’re trying to track down our Japanese ’source’ to see if we can get a backup feed just in case it is.

Our Japan source has hooked up a feed from Korea which presumably has the original commentary between Korean ‘wrap arounds’. The Korean hosts are still talking about the event so we’re still awaiting the start. They’re now showing some DREAM.3 highlights. The Korean broadcast set has a garish hot pink color similar to Bret Hart’s WWE-era wrestling trunks.

The long awaited matchup between Shinya Aoki and Katsuhiko Nagata starts the show. We’re going to start with the HDNet coverage and hold the Korean feed as a backup. Right now the HDNet announcers doing the prefight and they sound better already. The camera work already seems superior to the last time. Bas Rutten making an interesting point about the absence of ‘negative energy’ among the Japanese fans. Rutten talking about the Japanese fans some more–already their broadcast is 100 times better than it was for DREAM.3. Their showing an overhead shot of the video screens–my understanding is that HDNet doesn’t want to show close ups for legal reasons as DREAM isn’t always the most diligent about getting copyright clearance for the material they use on their state of the art videos. After reconsidering the first DREAM broadcast on HDNet it seems like a lot of the issues that we at THE SAVAGE SCIENCE had with it could have been pre-empted by a little bit of honesty. They should have gone on the air and forthrightly said that they’d just signed the deal and the logistics of doing a live event simulcast to the US still had to be ironed out. They could have said that the broadcast and production quality would be a ‘work in progress’. It would seem that this would be an effective strategy since anyone who’s up at 4 AM Eastern watching MMA is either drunk or a hardcore fan. Just doing these round by round commentaries can be a logistical mess at times, let alone doing an actual broadcast. OK, the fighters are being intro’d now and there’s Lene Hardt aka the ‘Crazy English Announcer Woman’ over the PA system.

Kudos to HDNet as their showing the fighter intros now which was a major gripe with DREAM.3. They’re also not talking over the fighter intros which is a big improvement over the HDNet debut.

A lot of excitement outside of our broadcast position at SAVAGE SCIENCE world headquarters here in Portland at the moment. Portland is home to North America’s largest *naked bike ride* and a number of the..uh…participants are riding by in various stages of undress. This is causing quite a commotion among the large Saturday night crowd on the streets. The things we sacrifice to bring you these events live.

Intros are done now, not surprisingly Sakuraba gets the biggest reaction. HDNet is now doing a pan of the arena while the preview videos are going on–it would be nice to see them as part of the broadcast but the network’s reason for not doing so is definitely understandable. HDNet’s Mark Cuban is a guy that everyone would love to sue and there’s no reason to court trouble. Rutten and the third guy in the booth (who’s name escapes me) are point out highlights of the video–Aoki quitting the police force, dedicating the fight to his dad for fathers day, etc. Lots of credit so far to HDNet–without doing that much different they’ve upgraded the professionalism of the broadcast 100%. Announcers making a good point about how respectful the Japanese fans are while the Aoki family is going on and on as part of the video–they correctly point out that there’s nowhere in the states where fans would be respectful during a video like this.

OK, we’re ready to fight now….we’ll be right back with the first match…