Anyone who is paying attention to modern MMA can see that the biggest names in the business are not consistently offering a top shelf product. Elite XC put together a card that pits their champions against mediocre fighters and will make for a less than entertaining night aimed at getting attention, not at putting out a high quality product.

The UFC put on one of their best events ever, which had three interesting light heavyweight matchups, the debut of a man many consider a future phenom (Shane Carwin, just so we’re clear) and the biggest matchup that they can offer at 155 pounds.

Still, as I scroll down the cards of upcoming events, I found something bizarre.

The UFC is promising to put out shows that are far from interesting, namely it’s utterly uncreative UFC 85 card which consists of two interesting matchups on the entire evening (Davis vs. Swick and Vera vs. Werdum) and it’s unpromising TUF finale card which is headed by two fighters hardly at the top of their game, while the only two interesting matchups it has to offer (McFedries vs. Eastman and Lister vs. Horn) will remain in the middle of the card and will probably not be broadcast but for the grace of God.

So I am damned to look for incredible fights on the outskirts of the MMA world, but what I found is that I don’t actually have to look, because everybody else seems to actually care about putting out top notch fight cards.

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What a change of pace from DREAM. 1 to DREAM. 2. In that short span, number of bad things have been mounting up in the FEG front. With this 2 Organization war going on in Japan, It seems that by garnering less attention and just basically letting things go on around them World Victory Road (WVR) has almost won the battle without much action. It seems that bad planning, or the lack of, will be the early coffin in DREAM. I don’t think anyone wants to see this happen but the little things have caught up to them and the future is definitely uncertain for DREAM at the moment. Being Dropped from Primetime, lack of Fighters and bad management all together are definitely to blame for this whole thing becoming a tragedy.

Anyways, enough of the negativity, back to the reason of this little writing. As announced DREAM. 2 will be held on April 29th and the card looks like so:

OLYMPIA DREAM.2 Middleweight GP 2008 1st Round
Date: April 29th, 2008
Place: Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan

Middleweight GP 1st Round:
8. Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Andrews Nakahara
7. Denis Kang vs. Gegard Mousasi
6. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Masakatsu Funaki
5. Ronaldo Jacare vs. Ian Murphy
4. Magomed Sultanakhmadov vs. Zelg Galesic
3. Yoon Dong Sik vs. Shungo Oyama
2. Kin Taiei vs. Minowaman

Lightweight GP 1st Round:
1. Shinya Aoki vs. J.Z. Calvan

(Many thanks to Nightmare of Battle for the Organized Full Card)

Osaka Dome- There are few things that can compare with the spectacle that is K-1 Dynamite. It’s absurdly entertaining and just ridiculous enough, so that it’s still worthy of true fight fans. This year’s event held nothing back, and the Japanese public lapped it up. With hearty helpings of good match-ups and silly novelties, Fields 2007 K-1 Dynamite ended the year with a bang.

Leading up with card was fight-legend, Kazushi Sakuraba against Pancrase veteran, Masakatsu Funaki. Funaki hadn’t battled in the ring since his loss to Rickson Gracie six years ago, but seemed calm and focused as things went underway on New Year’s Eve. A roaring crowd of over 47,000 people shouted support for both fighters, despite Saku’s overwhelming reputation.

The bout began slowly with both fighters testing the proverbial waters. Funaki peppered Saku with a punch/combination, but Saku utilized his jab and shot, scoring the take-down. The two scrambled on the mat where Funaki attempted a knee-bar, but failed. Sakuraba returned to his feet (to the delight of the crowd) and leapt into one of his trademark stomps, but to no avail. Back on the ground, Sakuraba managed to control the side mount and succeeded in submitting Funaki with a kimura in the first round. Funaki was clearly outclassed, but it was no surprise considering his time spent away from the ring.

Japan’s bad boy, Yamamoto ‘Kid’ Norifumi, took on Jiu-Jitsu practitioner Rani Yahya. Yahya is known for his extremely effective ground-game, but Kid controlled the fight all the way through, and refused to let it go to the mat. In the first round Kid countered Yahya with a hook, and tried to go for a guillotine choke, but was thwarted. Yahya then tried for his own wild hook combination, but hit mostly air.

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