While Fight Entertainment Group’s promotion K-1 HERO’S has already taken steps to try and fill the very large shoes left by the defunct promotion purchased by UFC owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta last March, the announcement of WVR was met with particular interest because of its players.

International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) vice president Tomiaki Fukuda was named president of the Japanese MMA Association, while Takao Yasuda will serve as Vice-President. Yasuda is also president of Don Quijote, which operates a general store chain renowned for its late night operation, featuring home electrical appliances, miscellaneous household goods, food, watches and fashion-related merchandise, sporting goods and leisure products.

Naoya Kino a, head of the Kino a Group, will be the official head of the parent company World Victory Road Inc. Kino a Group deals in custom-built house sales and renovation. Yukihiko Inoue, a former metropolitan police chief has been appointed as the organization’s commissioner.

"We plan to move the business forward with full transparency,” said Fukuda. “We cannot try to run things behind closed doors."

Kino a formally introduced the Japanese MMA Association, the country’s first attempt at a sanctioning body to oversee the currently unregulated sport. Kino a stated the main goal of the association would be to foster and protect the sport.

"At this time, MMA is on the decline in Japan,” he said. “Originally, Japan was the birthplace of such combat sports and it had been rising quickly. There are thoughts that MMA will completely disappear from Japan. Because of this, we founded this association to keep that from happening."

At the conference, Fukuda expressed the urgency to establish weight classes and broached the direction in which the WVR organization would take its regulations.

"While it is called MMA with a mix of techniques, there should be restrictions to keep it as a combat sport. Dangerous techniques will need to be restricted,” said Fukuda. “It would no longer be a sport if it was legal to perform soccer kicks or spine or hip locks. We will realize MMA as a sport. As there were accidents and injuries in PRIDE and HERO'S, we looked to them to try to create safer rules.”