DREAM.15

[jmt225]

Main card

• Lightweight Championship bout: Shinya Aoki (c) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri
• Lightweight bout: Gesias Cavalcante vs. Katsunori Kikuno
• Light Heavyweight Grand Prix bout: Melvin Manhoef vs. Tatsuya Mizuno
• Light Heavyweight Grand Prix bout: Gegard Mousasi vs. Jake O'Brien
• Middleweight bout: Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Karl Amoussou
• Featherweight bout: Michihiro Omigawa vs. Jong Young Sam
• Featherweight bout: Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Daiki Hata

..........................................................................​

Only three fights announced so far for this card (with Gegard Mousasi rumored to fight on it against a tbd opponent), but you know what? While normally I would bitch about this if it were Strikeforce, I don't care here. Why? Because no matter what they put on this bad boy, it will be a one fight card no matter what.

Shinya Aoki vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri has been YEARS in the making. Both have been considered the best Lightweights in Japan since 2007, and people have wanted to see them fight even before then.

Shinya Aoki is basically the best submission artist in all of MMA, while most consider Tatsuya Kawajiri the GSP of the Lightweight Division, due to his wrestling credentials. To go with that wrestling though, Kawajiri also has perhaps the best Ground and Pound in the sport.

So, you see... this fight is VERY interesting. Both these guys lack stand-up, so both usually want to take the fight to the ground. But here's the thing... NO ONE ever wants to go to the ground with Shinya Aoki, while NO ONE ever wants to be on the bottom of Tatsuya Kawajiri. Do you see what I mean in this fight being highly, highly interesting? I cannot wait for it.

As far as the other two fights... Katsunori Kikuno is one of Japan's up-and-coming Lightweight fighters, while Gesias Cavalcante was an up-and-coming fighter before losing his last two fights against, you guess it, Shinya Aoki and Tatsusya Kawajiri. So, this will be another interesting fight, because whoever wins will probably get the winner of the Aoki/Kawajiri fight.

And Melvin Manhoef is always exciting to watch. He's fighting a Japanese no-name, so he should wipe the floor with the guy and give us yet another highlight reel KO.

 

[jmt225]

Gegard Mousasi vs. Jake O'Brien has been added to the card.

This is NOT good fight for Gegard Mousasi. We saw in his last fight against King Mo that he is vulnerable to takedowns and being layed on, and well... that's exactly what Jake O'Brien's specialty is.

I'll never forget Heath Herring making his UFC debut, with all the hype in the World, only to lose to, at the time, this no-name called Jake O'Brien via lay and pray. It was shocking.

So, if O'Brien could do that to Herring, and King Mo could do it to Mousasi... I have no reason to believe that O'Brien won't be able to do it to Mousasi, either.

Hopefully though, we see an improvement from Mousasi's takedown defense, and see him make this his kind of fight. If he can to do that, then he should knock O'Brien's ass out in the 1st or 2nd round. If not though, then the Mousasi hype train will come to a full halt and the guy is going to completely fall off the radar.

 

[jmt225]

Alistair Overeem vs. Ricco Rodriguez has been added to the show.

Man, this is shaping up to be a great card with some huge names on it.

Everybody at this point should know who Alistair Overeem is... Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion, top 10 Heavyweight in the World.

His opponent, Ricco Rodriguez, was once upon a time considered one of the best Heavyweights in MMA. He made his UFC debut at UFC 32, beating Anderi Arlovski by TKO in the 3rd Round. He went 5-0 in the UFC before his first defeat in the company, capturing the UFC Heavyweight Championship in his 5th fight against Randy Couture, in the only fight to this day to be finished in the 5th Round. Unfortunately, he would lose his first Championship defense against Tim Sylvia, then in his next fight lose to Big Nog in PRIDE, and then have his very last fight in the UFC in a losing effort against Pedro Rizzo.

After the Pedro Rizzo fight he basically only fought on small shows from that point (with the one exception being an EliteXC show). He would win some fights, lose some fights... it was during this time (also during the latter part of his UFC career) where Ricco had a serious drug problem, which you could perhaps attribute to why he fail off so quickly in the MMA World.

However, he has since gotten his life together. Right now he's on a 7 fight win streak, with 6 of those wins him being victorious by KO or Submission. This is his true chance to make a comeback... can he do it? I, for one, cannot wait to find out.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

And just like that, Alistair Overeem is off the card.

Alistair Overeem (33-11 MMA, 3-0 DREAM) will not fight Ricco Rodriguez (42-11 MMA, 0-0 DREAM) at DREAM.15 - and he may not fight in the promotion ever again, according to his representative.

Martin De Jong, who trains the Strikeforce heavyweight champion, said his camp will talk to DREAM representatives at the end of this week to determine Overeem's future in the Japanese promotion.

"Right now, I can just say he's not going to fight Ricco, and he's not sure if he's going to fight in DREAM," De Jong today told MMAjunkie.com.

It's being said that DREAM has some major financial issues...

While nothing is said explicitly, after the issues that Nick Diaz, Giorgio Petrosyan and others have had with getting paid by FEG for appearances, it would not surprise me if DREAM owed Overeem some serious money. This of course comes after there being serious rumors circulating about DREAM being in peril. Stay tuned to this one.

Definitely a huge bummer, just because I really like watching Alistair Overeem fight, and I was looking forward to seeing how he'd pick Ricco Rodriguez apart. Rodriguez is nowhere close to an elite fighter nowadays, but it just would have been fun to see Overeem wreck him anyway.

What I'm concerned about is how DREAM is financially having major issues. I get HDNet, so naturally, I'm a fan of the promotion itself as they always run DREAM cards, and the promotion is basically the offspring of PRIDE. MMA is a different animal over there (it's presented like the WWE is here with the grandiose entrances and the sideshow match making), and it's a lot of fun to watch the fights the promotion puts on. It's also a decent alternative to the UFC. DREAM hopefully won't die just yet... there's still a lot for the promotion to put on for fights and tournaments. It's also a necessary place for UFC castoffs to earn some money, as well as a place for the UFC to possibly pick some talent off from.

EDIT: Nevermind this post, Overeem is back on and will fight Saturday.

EDIT AGAIN: He confirmed he's off.

 

[ITurnGirlsGay]

That's about par for the course with DREAM. The fight's on, the fight's off, the fight's back on, Don King cancelled the fight...It's no mystery why DREAM is in danger. Last I knew, weren't DREAM, M-1, and SF combining their collective resources to compete with UFC?

 

[INDYjon22]

Very, very solid card. I wish I had more access to these DREAM cards, because they are always really fucking stacked and usually turn out pretty good. It's a real bummer that Overeem dropped out and that DREAM may be having some financial problems. Hopefully they can get everything squared away and they can stay in business.

The Aoki/Kawajiri fight looks very promising. Both men are masters on the ground and it should be a real chess match between these two guys. I also haven't really been able to think of who has the advantage, so this fight should be very close. Gun to my head I would give Aoki a slight advantage.

The fight that interest's me the most is the O'Brien/Mousasi fight. I am a big fan of Mousasi and always cheer him on, but I am also an Indiana boy and Jake O'Brien is from Indiana and went to Purdue. Like JMT said, if Mousasi worked on his take down defense at all then he should have little issue with Jake, but if he did not work on it at all then O'Brien could make it a very long night for Mousasi. I am interested to see what happens.

And as always, Melvin Manhoef should give us something to awe at. Either he will get a highlight reel knockout or he himself will be knocked out. Either way, I am sure we will be talking about it after it is all said and done.

 

[jmt225]

As I said in the LD, this was easily the 2nd best show so far this summer behind UFC 116, if not the 2nd best show of the year (would still have to think about that one, though).

The show kicked off with Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Karl Amoussou. I didn't know much, if anything, about either of these guys, but Amoussou instantly rubbed me the wrong way he carried himself during his entrance. He was just cocky as shit. Nakamura, on the other hand, I found out was a student of Yoshida (a legend of the sport and Judo), and that instantly made me like him. And well... the guy I liked, to my satisfaction, ended up kicking some ass. Amoussou came out with wild kicks, but Nakamura being a student of perhaps the greatest Judo fighter of all time, knew how to handle it and took the guy down, which he did for numerous times throughout the fight. There was even one hilarious instance where Amoussou tried to Judo throw Nakamura, only to get reversed. But yeah... complete domination from Nakamura to go on and win a unanimous decision.

Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Daiki Hata was up next and I instantly became a fan of DJ.taiki (Daiki's nickname) as soon as I saw the video package, even if I had no clue what was being said. He was just so unique and full of personality (he actually reminded me a lot of Kiriyama from the movie Battle Royale). Plus he seemed like a very exciting fighter. Ishida though, I already knew he was no joke and the real deal, and well... he proved so once again in this fight. DJ obviously had the advantage on the feet and so badly wanted to keep the fight there, but Ishida's takedowns were just too good and he was just controlling DJ on the ground. DJ did a great job with his submission defense, and he was able to scramble out and get back to his feet a few times, but overall.. it was just absolute domination from Ishida, who won a unanimous decision. I definitely cannot wait to see more from DJ.taiki in the future though.

Michihiro Omigawa vs. Jong Young Sam was up next. Omigawa is another one of Yoshida's students, and perhaps his most promising one, so DREAM is trying to build him up by feeding him cans, just like Young Sam here who had a 0-2 record going into this fight. And well... it worked, because Omigawa looked great. One the feet he completely out struck Sam, and on the ground he controlled him and eventually got a Guillotine Choke to put him away.

After that easily came what turned out to be the Fight of the Night, and maybe even a top 5 Fight of the Year between Melvin Manhoef and Tatsuya Mizuno. First of all, Manhoef coming out to Eminem and then sprinting to the ring and the commentator comparing it to The Ultimate Warrior... well, that was just awesome. However, the fight itself blew any kind of entrance anyone could ever put together, because it was beyond tremendous. Manhoef came right out looking to knock Mizuno's head off, and he landed some shots, man. He dropped him with one combo and immediately pounced on him. Big mistake. Manhoef should have gotten up as soon as he saw Mizuno wasn't dazed, but instead he stayed in Mizuon's guard, until getting swept. With Mizuno now on top, he looked for a Kimura, but couldn't get anything. Manhoef finally exploded up and managed to get the fight back to the feet, but you could tell he was really tired at this point. Manhoef goes for a flurry, only to get caught by a straight from Mizuno that put him on his ass. Mizuno pounced, but Manhoef was able to withstand and protect himself, so Mizuno decided to go after that Kimura again and this time... he got it. Fun, fun, fun fucking fight.

To describe the Gegard Mousasi vs. Jake O'Brien is simple... Jake came out, went for a takedown, couldn't get it, left his head out there and Mousasi locked in a Guillotine Choke. And it was over just like that, 31 seconds into the fight. Great win for Mousasi, and hopefully he fights again sooner rather than later after a win like this, where nothing was taken out of him.

Gesias Cavalcante vs. Katsunori Kikuno was a great fight. I really dig Kikuno. He's so much fun to watch; he's a Karate guy just like Machida is, but only he's more aggressive. His body kicks are some of the most brutal you'll ever see. Like I said... so much fun to watch. And that first round... we saw him at his best. JZ managed to get a couple of takedowns, but Kikuno got right up after both of them and controlled the fight on the feet the entire first 10 minutes of the fight with beautiful body kicks and looping+straight punch combinations to the face. Unfortunately though, the 2nd round was much different. About a minute into it, JZ secured a takedown and was able to control Kikuno the rest of the fight. He got Kikuno's back even, but he wasn't able to do anything with it. Kikuno was able to manage to get back to his feet finally, but unfortunately there was only about 20 seconds left and there was just no time for him to do anything. JZ went on to win, in my opinion, a bullshit split decision. Kikuno won the 10 minute first round, and JZ won the 5 minute 2nd Round... how does JZ win the fight? Does that make sense to anyone else? It doesn't to me.

But anyways, even after that bummer, nothing could get me less excited for the main event. It was the reason I stayed up for over 3 hours at 5 in the morning. Shinya Aoki vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri... and man, as a massive Shinya Aoki fan, it was definitely all worth it, because he put on a tremendous performance that should shut all his haters right the fuck up.

To sum it up.. Aoki immediately went for a takedown. Kawajiri was able snub it, but Aoki got a hold of that leg and the fact of the matter is, Aoki is the last person walking on this Earth that you EVER want grabbing your leg and he showed why last night. Aoki got that Achilles Lock locked in and he just would not let it go, even after receiving some brutal kicks to the face (which fucked Aoki's eye up). Finally, Kawajiri tapped. It was perhaps way too late though because he was on the mat for a long, long time after the fight.

Speaking of after the fight, Aoki announced that at the next DREAM show, on September 25th, he will have a rematch against Gilbert Melendez, and man... I cannot wait for that one. It shall be awesome.

All in all, great, great, great show that I highly recommend everyone to go to Youtube and check out. I promise it will be one of the best MMA shows you'll see all year long.