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X-1 World Events presents it’s latest event, “X-1 Heroes”, Saturday Sept. 11 at the Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The “X-1: Heroes” card is packed with a fourteen fight card, which includes a four man light-heavyweight championship tournament. The main event features a 185lb title bout between Niko Vitalve vs. Kala Kolohe Hose
Fans can watch the event live via PPV or an X-1 live stream on the X1Events.com website.
The MMA News had a chance to speak with X-1 promotion owner Mike Miller, to talk about Saturday’s event as well as mixed martial arts in the state of Hawaii.
TheMMANews: “You founded X-1 World Events in 2004, what inspired you to get into the MMA industry?”
Mike Miller: “ I started off with a gym that was open with a lot of aspiring fighters, and I seen how things were going—there wasn’t a lot of competition out here in terms of promotions to have all the fighters participating inn. I used to train myself, but lately I have been too busy—the more business happens the less time you have for yourself.”
TheMMANews: “The Hawaii MMA scene seems to have taking a bit of a hit in the last couple years with some of the biggest shows in North America like Superbrawl, ICON, and Rumble on the Rock now being nonexistent. Do you think there were factors other than the down economy that contributed to this?”
Mike Miller: “It’s hard to say, in 2007 all three of the big promotions had big shows here, I had the first statewide PPV televised show here. ICON had a really big stadium show out here and you had Pro Elite out here with KJ Noons fighting on their card, those were all big shows and then things took a dive after that—things just weren’t the same from that point on. Every two weeks you can go to a sports bar and watch a UFC fight and things just got so saturated that it was hard to keep people interested in MMA, and have them pay to go watch shows when they could spend $5 and go to a bar and watch the big show.”
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TheMMANews: “With you being a local, do you feel more pressure in putting on a good show for your community?”
Mike Miller: “Yeah, the better the show themore expenses you have and I mean you don’t really make that money back at the gate. So the better the show you put on the more it costs the promoter and in turn it’s harder to profit, but I do want to put on a good show for the fans regardless.”
“TheMMANews: “Your next event is X-1 Hereos is September 11; tell us about this event and how the preparation is going?
Mike Miller: “Preparation is the same thing we usually do, all of our production and pre promotion, organizing all the flights and hotels. I think its just the fight itself that is drawing the big attention—we have two of the top 185 pounders and they are both local guys so that’s drawing up the big hype out here. We also have our co main as our light heavyweight tournament in which we found a competitor from Russia, Korea, Japan, California and some local guys from here. So we used our vacant 205 pound championship to have guys from all around the world fighting for the title.”
“TheMMANews: “It is said that the success of this event could decide if the UFC comes to Hawaii, how do you feel about this and the prospect of the UFC coming to Hawaii.”
Mike Miller: “UFC is always good but bad as well, for me I’m a fight fan so I will go and watch it, but it also raises the bar on us little guys. The big lights and the big production people see that and come to expect that from all shows.”
“TheMMANews: “What are your thoughts on the future of MMA and X-1 in Hawaii?”
Mike Miller: “For the local people we are there to fill the void, and are providing jobs in terms of fighting. I feel we can stay where we are at with no problem, or we can kick it up a notch but then things to get expensive. With us being in Hawaii, the fighters cant exactly drive inn, we have to pay to drive everyone in and the hotels charge tourist rates—which is great for the fighters who get a vacation at the same time but for us everything is a bigger expense.”
“TheMMANews: “What can we expect from the show Sept 11? “
Mike Miller: “It’s been the strongest buzz we’ve ever had on the streets, a lot of people are talking, I don’t know if that means they will buy tickets but for sure we will have a good showing. Two years ago we would have had the fans that would follow their friends to the card because they had nothing to do but now it’s more of the hardcore fan base that will attend and not just wait till the results the next day. For all the fans not able to make it this time we do have a live stream that you can watch at www.x1events.com so go to that site and click on the stream to watch the fights!”