Watched all those DREAM videos.

Watched all the videos in this post. Very enjoyable!

So, here are my thoughts.

• I’m not sure who this was made by, but it has the same feel as all the Pride pre-fight videos.
• There is a hell of a lot of talk about Fedor. Despite the fact that he is not a part of the organisation, they have no qualms about fighters like Cro Cop saying that he is probably the best fighter in the world right now. They show footage of Fedor’s fights, and his sambo escapades. I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t end up fighting for DREAM, after seeing these videos.
• It really is an absolute who’s who of MMA, apart from a handful of stars on the North American circuit. These videos truly got my pumped about the promotion. It all looks almost too good to be true… It seems that Pride the ship went down, but all the passengers survived and are now cruising on the good ship DREAM. There’s Cro Cop, Aoki, Calvan, Uno, Kid Yamamoto, Kawajiri, Akiyama, Sakuraba, Tokoro, and in fact Fedor’s name is directly mentioned along with the others, as if he already was a part of the promotion… I need to be careful, I’m getting a killboner in my brain just writing all these names in the same sentence.
• Aoki is being pushed as the great Japanese hope. He’s also got the mind of a pervy old Japanese businessman.
• Actually, the more I watch the videos in terms of production, the more I feel they have a stronger K-1 / Heroes influence than a Pride one. Although they were always very similar, I was reminded of the K-1 / Heroes TV broadcasts.
• Crusher Kawajiri is absolutely fucking ripped. I had no idea the guy was such a monster.
• Saturday night is alright for fighting.

What’s up

Went to judo on Wednesday. Fervently avoided anyone who looked big, strong, and had anything other than a brightly coloured belt. Look, I was exhausted, and judo is dangerous shit. It’s like jiu jitsu only it happens five feet in the air. If I make a mistake, I go crashing to the floor. And I suck at judo, so I make lots of mistakes. I’m taking it really slow in judo, which is fine by me. I want to pick up some basics first, and once I know I’m not going to break my neck by landing incorrectly then I’ll be regularly sparring with the strong black belts. Just not yet. Please.

This weekend is going to be wicked. I’m going to buy some nice cold beer (there are billions of different beers to choose from in Japan, and loads of them are seriously tasty), and I’m going to go to my inlaws house and watch DREAM 1 on a huge flatscreen TV.

DREAM is going to be sweet. It’s basically Pride, back from the dead and on primetime TV as if nothing had happened.

The main event is JZ Calvan against Aoki, which I am super pumped for. JZ Calvan is the all-round monster that dominated the last two Heroes tournaments, if I remember correctly. Shinya Aoki is the Paraestra-affiliated super-duper-ultra-grappling-whizz, who can simultaneously armbar your teeth off and heelhook your shins out. How they perform against each other will make for a truly fascinating match.

Shinya Aoki – Artist’s Rendering

JZ Calvan – Artist’s Rendering

 

There will also be Cro Cop against Random Japanese Tomato Can Junior. I hope that Cro Cop can get back to doing what he does best… kicking the wigs off random Japanese cans (or just people in general), spraying the audience (and your face) with buckets of blood.