Before writing this, I did some quick thinking about what the title would be. I guess lots of people are having fun with this whole DREAM thing so I thought I’d spare you a lame title and not beat around the bush. As most of us are now aware, DREAM’s inaugural show DREAM.1 had a less than spectacular draw from the Japanese audiences. Raking in a mere 8.9, I think lots of us are already fearing the worst by now. I was completely stunned when I read this number. I realistically didn’t think it was a huge draw but this was pretty low from what I expected considering Mirko Cro-Cop would be fighting. Mirko did manage to draw an lackluster 12.0, but it is still a lot lower than even the less than stacked K-1 Dynamite!! 2007. Thankfully, attendance wasn’t as low with a solid 19,000+.
Many speculate that this low number was particularly due to the opponent Mirko was facing. Luckily and hopefully, it seems that Mirko will face better competition in the near future and maybe sooner than we think considering the name Sergei Kharitonov has been thrown around for a possible June clash with Cro Cop. Kharitonov has remained inactive since avenging a loss to Alistair Overeem in August. Kharitonov was also supposedly scheduled to fight Might Mo at Dynamite!! but the bout was scrapped.
I know this is mostly a MMA site but I have to squeeze in a bit of K-1 news. Yosuke Nishijima is also back in action, sadly. He’ll be giving the K-1 circuit a shot. He’ll face Ewerton Teixeira at the K-1 World GP in Yokohama on April 13th, which also features 2 stelar bouts, Rey Sefo vs. Badr Hari and Semmy Schilt vs. Mark Hunt for the World Super Heavyweight Title. Mighty Mo, Glaube Feitosa, Chalid “Die Faust” Arrab, and Alexander Pitchkounov will also be featured that night.
The only thing that could really eclipse this show is a solid K-1 MAX card and April is the beginning of a year long search for the 2008 K-1 World MAX champion. K-1 World MAX 2008 World Championship Tournament Final 16 will be on April 9th and definitely promises to deliver. This card is just incredible from top to bottom and to me, is definitely the best card in April whether it be K-1 or MMA. The tournament bouts are as follows:
K-1 World MAX Championship Round of 16
- Masato vs. Virgil Kalakoda
- Buakaw Por. Pramuk vs. Albert Kraus
- Andy Souwer vs. Mike Zambidis
- Yoshihiro Sato vs. Murat Direkci
- Drago vs. GORI
- Artur Kyshenko vs. Jordan Tai
- Saro Presti vs. Warren Stevelmans
- Chi Bin Lim vs. Yoshihiro Kido
Overall, an amazing card. The 2 things I don’t really like too much are the fact that both recent GP winners, Lim and Kido will be facing off against each other in the 1st round. I would’ve liked to see how far both can go in the competition. Also, the fact that HIROYA is on the undercard. I don’t see why they’re pushing this kid so much considering he didn’t win the U-18 tournament last year. Also, my pick to win the MAX title this year is bold but I’m gonna have to go with Artur Kyshenko. I think he’s definitely going to take all the experience from last year and crown himself champ at years end.
Sticking with FEG, DREAM.2 is around the corner. The fighters announced to be participating in the GP for the event are:
- Dong Sik Yoon
- Yoshihiro Akiyama
- Taiei Kin
- Kiyoshi Tamura
- Masakatsu Funaki
- Ikuhisa Minowa
- Kazushi Sakuraba
At 1st glance it does appear like this is Akiyama’s tournament to lose but names like Daniel Acacio and Zelg Galesic have come up and could make this a lot more interesting. Sadly, it looks like Melvin Manhoef will not be participating this year due to a scheduled fight against Peter Aerts in Holland. Yes, Peter Aerts believe it or not.
Finally, some World Victory Road talk. Sengoku 2 and 3 were announced at the inaugural show on the 5th but new names have been confirmed for this upcoming show on May 18. Satoru Kitaoka, Yoshihiro Nakao and Yuki Sasaki join Roger Gracie and Kevin Randleman on the growing list of fighters. While not necessarily the elite of Japanese MMA, they do bring in experience and big wins to the table. I really like the fact that some of the Pancrase fighters are actually fighting on bigger show, which was the case for Kawamura, Monteiro and now Kitaoka. Nakao was just recently on the edge of fighting Cro Cop but was saved by the bell and from potential death when The Oriental Mystery Takumi Yano joked about Nakao’s possible death after the Cro Cop fight.
Also, to shift things to the WVR side of the Japanese MMA power struggle. It was announced that FujiTV has decided to pick up a WVR program. This doesn’t necessarily mark the re-entrance of FujiTV completely back into the MMA game but this may be a sign of things to come. I think we all know how important a TV deal would be for a large Japanese promotion and I’d like to wait and see what comes out of this. FujiTV, as we all should know, was the network that dropped PRIDE after news of the Yakuza scandal rocked the MMA world.
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I do still love MMA and have...
