The biggest agent during the golden age of Japanese MMA almost got a bullet in the head after crossing the Yakuza over their big New Years Eve event.
Vice TV’s ‘Dark Side of the Cage’ returns this Wednesday (Feb. 19th, 2025) with the second part of their two-part series on Japanese MMA promotion PRIDE FC. Last week featured the rise of Pride, and this week focuses on the dramatic fall.
Pride’s collapse came after news of its Yakuza connections hit the presses in Japan, but the criminal organization had its tendrils sunk deep into the promotion from the beginning. In 2003 it’s alleged they murdered original company president Naoto Morishita, putting in power the more pliable Nobuyuki Sakakibara. And with competition heating up in the Japanese fight industry, the Yakuza used their muscle to try and keep control.
This is where Australian manager Miro Mijatovic comes in. He managed Mirko Crocop and helped the Croatian kickboxer reach a big money deal to jump from K-1 to Pride. At the time he was warned that the Yakuza were very active within Pride, but that didn’t stop him.
From ‘Dark Side of the Cage’ – things get real with the Yakuza behind PRIDE after manager Miro Mijatovic signs Fedor Emelianenko to a competing NYE event. pic.twitter.com/U414m9XvHb
— Ryan Harkness (@Ryan_Harkness) February 18, 2025
“I didn’t buy into it, I basically ignored it,” Mijatovic told ‘Dark Side.’ “To me, there was no reason why I wouldn’t sign him to what I saw as the up-and-coming promotion. There’s gangsters all over the world, and it hadn’t spilled into business practices at that stage.”
It quickly would. Crocop fought four times for PRIDE in 2003, fulfilling his contract with the promotion. With Mirko a free agent, Mijatovic signed him to fight for Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye, the big New Years Eve combat sports event. But 2003 marked the first year Pride was holding their own NYE event, and they were so committed to sinking Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye that they reportedly paid Crocop several hundred thousand dollars to withdraw from the event with an ‘injury.’
The move would backfire on them, because Mijatovic travelled to Russia and signed Fedor Emelianenko to replace Crocop as the Inoke Bom-Ba-Ye 2003 headliner. The Yakuza were so angry they threatened the organizers’ lives if they announced Fedor’s participation in the event. Mijatovic was the one who ended up getting on stage at a press conference to confirm Emelianenko would compete.
That, he was told, marked him for death.
Three days after Fedor beat pro wrestler Yuji Nagata at Inoke Bom-Ba-Ye, several men surrounded Mijatovic in his hotel lobby.
“They take me up to the top floor where there’s sort of a bar,” Mijatovic told ‘Dark Side.’ “They take me to a table and they sit me down. So I realized, ‘This is really bad.’ … I’m shocked to see Sakakibara there and he’s got big Yakuza looking guys with him.”
“The Yakuza started yelling at me about Fedor,” he continued. “And I started saying, ‘Well, if you guys hadn’t gotten to Mirko Crocop, we wouldn’t even be sitting here.’”
Mijatovic claims Sakakibara presented him with a contract written in Japanese and told him to sign it. Mijatovic refused to sign anything in Japanese. And that’s when things went from bad to worse.
“One of the Yakuza bodyguards pulled a gun and put it to my head,” Mijatovic recalled. “I remember thinking it’s now gotten really real.”
Mijatovic would end up signing an English contract that gave them “all my rights for zero [dollars],” and he immediately fled Japan with his family, moving from place to place in Australia to avoid the possibility of further Yakuza reprisals.
Just one crazy story amongst many as the Japanese MMA promotion heads towards a dramatic collapse. ‘Dark Side of the Cage: The Fall of PRIDE’ airs Wednesday February 18th at 10p.m. EST on Vice TV.