The UFC's annual trip to Japan on Friday night underscored how in the country, where the modern version of MMA was able to draw regular huge crowds and achieve mainstream success long before that happened in the rest of the world, that it's actually a market that UFC has never been able to fully crack.
Only 8,571 fans came to the same Saitama Super Arena that has played host to some of the greatest cards and greatest fights in history. And the word from Japan was that a good percentage of those tickets weren't paid.
That is the same building where Pride used to draw 20,000 or more, and then claim it was 40,000, and where UFC sold out its first time in.