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DREAM 7/20 Saitama Super Arena
By Zach Arnold | July 19, 2009
- Welterweight GP Reserve match: Seichi Ikemoto vs. Tarec Saffiedine
- Welterweight GP: Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Marius Zaromskis
- Welterweight GP: Jason High vs. Andre Galvao
- Welterweight GP Tournament Finals
- Lightweights: Shin’ya Aoki vs. Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro
- Lightweights: Katsunori Kikuno vs. Andre Dida
- Middleweights: Melvin Manhoef vs. Paulo Filho
I had to chuckle at this commenter:
I was kinda suprised to see that Herr Tim Laidbacker picked Filho to win by submission.
Anyone who has brain and watched Filho’s last 2 fights should not think he would submit a beast like Manhoef without trouble. It just won’t happen, Herr Laidbacker.
So what was the end result? Read here. Full event results here.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Some fights to watch there, but I notice these most colorful characters have no nicknames.
Melvin “masher” Manhoef
Shinya “artist” Aoki
If those nicknames stick, remember grafdog!
Not the best DREAM card, that is for sure. I can’t see it bringing in big ratings either.
I really want to see DREAM fold and their better fighters go to Sengoku.
Manhoef vs Filho is one of the hardest fights ever to predict. If Filho comes in looking like he did in the last Sonnen fight, he’s going to get dusted harder than Bisping did @ 100. If he comes in motivated, he subs Melvin within 2 mins.
Kikuno is a good guy to bring into DREAM and Dida really needs a win. That’s a good matchup.
Hard to get super excited for the card when I don’t have HDnet anymore.
“I really want to see DREAM fold and their better fighters go to Sengoku.”
Any specific reason why you want DREAM to fold and for Sengoku to get bigger and not the other way around? I’m not bashing or flaming you. Hell, I’m not even disagreeing with you, because I would rather FEG focus all their energy on K-1. And Sengoku might be better for the SPORT (note I emphasize sport) of MMA than DREAM, but I just want to read a specific reason for it.
This card is very underwhelming. I think DREAM would be better served having less events a year. All of their recent cards are built around tournaments, and lack big main events.
Dream watch out. Dana and the UFC are coming to get you even if Dana White has to be killed lol
Specifics…
1. Having two major organizations in Japan is redunant and keeps us away from some better matchups. It would be nice to have Miller, Souza, Santiago, & Misaki all in one division instead of two.
2. There is already minor league system set up. Pancrase, Shooto, GCM, DEEP…. All provide a place for young fighters to develop their skills. Therefore, even seeing one of these organizations becoming another minor league company really has no purpose.
3. Sengoku seems to treat MMA more like a sport, while DREAM treats it more like entertainment. DREAM has some great athletes, but I feel like they can be overshadowed by the freak show stuff K-1 does.
4. DREAM/K-1 isn’t exactly fighter friendly. Kawajiri spoke out and said he wanted to do MMA, but was forced to do kickboxing because that is what K-1 wanted of him.
And as you said…. K-1 could stick to K-1 and Sengoku could stick to MMA.
At the end of the day, I just like Sengoku’s form of MMA better, and I would like to see the talent consolidated more. Large organizations are needed, but not a lot of them. UFC in the US, Sengoku in Japan… etc….
I believe its FEG that are looking to promote MMA as more entertainment rather than sport in an effort to draw high ratings. I think if Real Entertainment was to split from FEG and go out on their own and sign a new television deal, you would see more legitimate match making rather than freak show matches being booked.
I prefer the way Sengoku conducts business but we all know that if the two companies were to merge, it would be FEG buying out Sengoku. Not the other way around.
DREAM can do whatever they can to try to bring up ratings but it’s not going to work. Japanese MMA is on a downturn and considering the recession, it’s probably going to take awhile for it to recover. DREAM needs to give up the futile ratings game and focus on building stars for the future. Right now it’s hopeless to rely on whatever washed up big Japanese name to carry the DREAM brand. All those fans who followed PRIDE aren’t coming back just like how the WWE lost all those wrestling fans forever. You gotta build new names now.
Isn’t that supposed to be the Japanese way of doing business? Making investments that are going to pay off ten years from now instead of doing what you think is best for your next financial quarter. Instead it seems that FEG (and many Japanese corporations these days) are going the short-term route that American businesses typically do.
If DREAM were to go under or vanish then my own personal interst levels in MMA would taper off quite a bit.
I’ve seen the first 7 SENGOKU’s and they totally underwhelmed me. Maybe I’m just a bit of a mark for FEG.
Master Ishii seems intent on working with SENGOKU to some degree. It’s coming up for one year since he first mentioned the possibility at DREAM.6 when Barnett and Akiyama were in the audience.
Now that SENGOKU have Satoshi Ishii drumming up all kinds of interest (and ticket sales) for them I doubt that an alliance will happen just yet.
Chin up FEG.
I was kinda suprised to see that Herr Tim Laidbacker picked Filho to win by submission.
Anyone who has brain and watched Filho’s last 2 fights should not think he would submit a beast like Manhoef without trouble. It just won’t happen, Herr Laidbacker.
Filho’s country fellow, Mauricio Ruas did beat the former UFC champ after coming back from 2 embarassing performances (1-1)in the octagon. However, we cannot expect the same for Paulo Filho because his eyes are telling us he’s still got major phisiological problem as well as mental. This guy’s not the same man he was a while ago, when he was still wearing that cheap looking carpenter vest. He may win again in the future, but not against the best guys.
I put money on Zaromskis. I was happy. Then I had a bunch of money on Galvao too. Then I wasn’t so happy anymore. I also can’t wait for people to be like “Zaromskis him High late, how is that different than Henderson?” You know, just because no one seemed to actually grasp the argument there.
Aoki/Shaolin might be a contender for the worst fight of the year. Jesse Taylor is now 7-0 since leaving the UFC, no decisions, wins over Drew Fickett and Dong Sik Yoon. A couple more Ws and I’d like to perhaps see him back in the UFC, or at least continue competing in DREAM. Why not do Taylor vs. the loser of Jacare/Mayhem III?
I think it’s time for Sakurai to hang it up. I don’t think the motivation is there anymore. Even a few years ago he would have beaten a guy like Zaromskis.
I bet Zaromskis will be ranked in at least a few Top 10’s now. It is typical protical for MMA fanboys. A fighter wins a tournament in Japan, and automatically gets ranked high. Despite the fact that his biggest win was against Jason High.
Vitor Ribeiro….. Is his career over too? No big win in years….
Zaromskis belongs in no sane person’s top 10. He has awesome tornado kicks, but that doesn’t make you a serious welterweight contender. Nick Diaz’s zombie boxing might eat him alive.
Vitor Ribeiro just reappeared and as soon as that has happened he will likely disappear. Oh well. Not a bad win for Aoki to get back on his horse given the guy’s rep. Still think the fight was crapola.
U got love Melvin. You always get a good fight with him. He was bossing that fight and looked in control.
I don’t see why Shaolin should retire. Don’t forget he is coming off major retina surgery and fought a top 3 (if not top 2) guy in the world in Aoki, who clearly didn’t want to engage on the ground and had to grind out a somewhat lackluster decision.
Is it me or did Sakurai look a little out of shape?
Little? It took 7 hours for him to make weight.
Very few people would bother to rank Zaromskis in the top 10. It’s quite obvious that he’s not that good. He dropped and TKOed a dehydrated, unprepared Sakurai. And he gave Jason High a really brutal KTFO but c’mon, it’s still Jason High. Impressive, exciting kickboxer but he’s not that good to be a force in MMA. He’s just lucky that Sakurai wasn’t prepared and that Diaz doesn’t seem to be fighting for Dream anymore. Zaromskis may be the best welterweight at Dream right now but that’s not saying much.