Is The Yakuza Trying To Make “Kiss Man” Sleep With The Fishes?

Last week we told you about the future match between “Kiss Man” Yoshihiro Nakao and Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic. But now, it looks like Cro Cop is going to have to get his kiss on with another man. It turns out that the fight was mostly a done deal, but nothing was finalized. The reason that may be is because the Japanese mafia, or Yakuza, had been threatening to kill Nakao if he stepped in the ring with the Serb. Yeah… that’s as a good a reason as any to postpone things.

In his blog Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic announced Yoshihiro Nakao as his opponent in his first fight within the DREAM, but things have taken a sudden twist. This newly founded organisation has confirmed several new fights, but not the one between Mirko and Nakao, Profightstore.com reports.

Nakao’s coach Takuma Yano wrote in his blog that the reason the fight was not confirmed is that the Yakuza are threatening his fighter.

Yano writes that his fighter was told he would be ‘sleeping with the fishes’ if he entered the ring with Mirko Filipovic. The Yakuza are powerful enough to have directly influenced the downfall of PRIDE, so this comes to no surprise to the Japanese public.

Damn. That is one jaded society when talk about the mafia being intimately involved with a professional sports league doesn’t even cause one batted eyelash. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to get to Vegas to lay some Super Bowl odds for next year.
Yakuza Threatening Mirko’s Opponent? [Javno Sports]
Image [pridefc.com]