DREAM matches!

I’ve just cast my votes over at the DREAM website for who I think should fight next in the middle and lightweight GPS.

You can do the same!

Head here for the middleweight matchups, and here for the lightweights.

It’s really easy, the fighters’ names appear in the dropdown menu in the same order that they appear in the picture above. You will see the fighter’s picture once you select him, anyway.

Once you are done, press the big blue button at the bottom.

Here are my pics.

Middleweight:

I have Kin Taei-whatsisname against Mousasi. I think this could be a good fight and hope that Mousasi get’s through it.

Then the Dongbar against Zelg Galesic, who I think is awesome and showed much improved ground skills in his last outing. I think the Dongbar will take it though, as Galesic is too green to be winning any GPs just yet.

I’ve got Sakuraba against Mayhem, because I think that would be an awesome fight and I think there would be some lovely-jubbly jiu jitsu on display there.

And Jacare vs. Tamura, which I think will be a great fight, and will test Jacare.

I hope that the next round will have Mousasi, Dongbar, Sakuraba or Miller, and Jacare.

Lightweight:

I quite like Caoru Uno, and was very impressed by his handling of Ishida, but I personally don’t think he has enough star quality to win something like this. Eddie Alvarez is on a tear and this could be his breakout performance. These two will show a good fight.

The other dude I don’t really care about, but I hope Aoki gets through and the final will be Aoki / Alvarez.

Head over and cast your votes, let me know how you chose!

DREAM update…

The next two DREAM events are looking good.

 JZ Calvan will be rematching Shinya Aoki which is good news for all the fans including me who really wanted to see how the fight would play out. That will be on the April 29 card, which is not far away at all!

 

In May, the next round of the lightweight GP will get underway, with Kaoru Uno stepping in against Mitsuhiro Ishida in what should be a classic battle between strength and technique, and Joachim Hansen taking on the rising star Eddie Alvarez, who basically pwntZeriosed Andre Dida in the first round. Hansen vs. Alvarez will be guaranteed fireworks, as will Buscape vs. Kawajiri.

All in all, some pretty solid fights and definitely a spring / summer to look forward to!

ELBOW 2 NECK IS OUCH

A nice gif of the illegal blows that prematurely ended the main event at DREAM 1 on Saturday night and caused an entire nation of MMA fans to let out a simultaneous howl of disappointment.

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.

A bunch of videos about DREAM…

Haven’t had a chance to watch them all yet, but I certainly will! Check it out or die, morans! Loads of good fighter footage, I think.

(DREAM is the next big thing to come out of Japan, if you didn’t know… Zombie Pride. Read Fight Opinion for the full deal.

Watch them in order: