(Try as he might, the referee could not focus on the fight as long as he was haunted by his dying mother’s wish that he do whatever he wanted with his life, as long as it did not bring upon his family the shame of the bow tie.)

The finals of Dream’s welterweight tournament goes down in Japan on Monday, and if there’s anything we’ve learned over the years it’s that betting on Japanese MMA is like buying heroin in a strange neighborhood.  You never know for sure what you’re getting, or whether it’s even halfway legitimate, but damn if it isn’t a rush.  Dream.10 betting odds come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Shinya Aoki (-200) vs. Vitor Ribeiro (+175)
Hayato Sakurai (-600) vs. Marius Zaromskis (+475)
Andre Galvao (-360) vs. Jason High (+300)
Melvin Manhoef (+105) vs. Paulo Filho (-130)
Andre Amade (+145) vs. Katsunori Kikuno (-160)
Dong Sik Yoon (-225) vs. Jesse Taylor (+190)
Seichi Ikemoto (-150) vs. Tarec Saffiedine (+125)

Our thoughts…

(The flannel is coming back, bitches.)

Fresh off this morning’s Dream.9, which we’ll go ahead and call a success in the sense that no one died during the “ridiculously stupendous” freak show portion of the evening, Dream already has some plans for their next event, predictably titled Dream.10.  The organization announced that WAMMA lightweight champion (that’s still a real thing, right?) Shinya Aoki will face Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro in what will be Aoki’s first actual MMA fight since his TKO loss to Hayato “Mach” Sakurai.

Also at Dream.10, Melvin Manhoef will take on mercurial former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho in a fight that could be an awesome clash of styles or a complete mess.  I think we can all agree that Filho stands a good chance if he shows up in shape, focused, and not with one foot in the spirit world, but will get absolutely decapitated if he wigs out like he did against Chael Sonnen in his last fight.  Either way, it’s a strong addition to the July 20th fight card, which also includes the semi-final and final rounds of the Dream welterweight grand prix tournament, and possibly even the return of Kazushi Sakuraba.  Because hey, he’s not dead yet, and he’d prefer that the end come in the ring in front of a silent arena of Japanese fans.

In other bookings news…