Sokoudjou

(In the animal kingdom, playing dead can be considered an intelligent defense. In an MMA fight, not so much. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Yesterday's event may have been low on spectacle, but DREAM plans to come back strong for their next show. Here's what's on the card for DREAM.11 (October 6th, Yokohama):

— The long-awaited rubber-match between Shinya Aoki and Joachim Hansen. The two top-ten lightweights first met at PRIDE Shockwave 2006, where Aoki took out Hellboy via gogoplata. But Hansen got revenge last July, scoring a brutal TKO over Aoki at DREAM's lightweight GP finals. Hansen has been inactive since that fight, while Aoki has gone 4-1, earning victories over Eddie Alvarez and Vitor Ribeiro, with his only loss to Hayato Sakurai in an ill-advised welterweight match.

(You know, Jason, it would be nice if your junk transitioned to a renewable energy source. Photo courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

The return of Kid Yamamoto. Light-heavyweights fighting super-heavyweights. Desperate baseball players possibly dying in the ring. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to see some crazy shit. DREAM.9 kicks off in a few minutes, and if you're reading this live, God bless you. Round-by-round updates from the HDNet broadcast are after the jump; refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. If there's a long stretch of time where there's no updates, it just means that I've fallen asleep. Let's all hope that doesn't happen.
 

(Image courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

Maybe the word "epic" is overused on the Internet. Certainly we've been guilty of using it vain when "totally sweet" would have sufficed. But I think "epic" really does apply to DREAM.9 (May 26th, Yokohama) which contains the quarterfinals of DREAM's "Super Hulk Tournament" and Featherweight Grand Prix, as well as a great lightweight feature between Tatsuya Kawajiri and Gesias Cavalcante, and the middleweight title fight between Jason Miller and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza.

The show will be broadcast in North America on HDNet Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. ET/2 a.m. PT, and while I'm not really down with farmer's hours, I might have to watch this one live (and maybe even liveblog it) — especially since it'll also represent an emotional farewell to HDNet. Right, so DREAM.9's official fight order will be...

Dana White's UFC 93 video blog, episode 3 - Watch more free videos

Dana White’s latest video-blogging effort is very long but not very interesting.  He pumps a little iron, tries to convert kilograms to pounds, wanders around Dublin, and strikes up conversations with a few fighters.  Yawn.  Just goes to show that the tedium of anyone’s daily life is still boring, even if they’re the head of the UFC.

Alan Belcher seems to think he’s gotten a good deal for himself in securing a bout with Denis Kang, who’s making his UFC debut this Saturday.  Oddsmakers certainly don’t agree, but as Belcher points out, the vibe from the crowd in the UFC is very different from Japan.  Just how much that will affect Kang, who’s been around in this sport for a while now, that remains to be seen.

After the jump, Affliction hypes Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou vs. Renato “Babalu” Sobral with some help from Loretta Hunt and Josh Gross.

(Luis Cane's pimp-slap, straight left combo. No one ever expects it. Props, UG.)

- Apparently the hip new trend for youngsters on the internet is to film themselves making UFC predictions and then throw it up on YouTube. Fightlinker spotted the very enthusiastic WishKid12 doing her thing, and decided to see how her picks matched up against those made by professionals like us. We're proud to report that both Bens (weirdly, we made the exact same picks) soundly defeated this precocious prognosticator. While she went 2-3 on the night, we went 4-1 (curse you Cane, and your bitch-slapping awesomeness). The only one in this impromptu contest to beat us was Fightlinker, with a perfect 5-0. So basically we're smarter than a twelve-year-old girl but dumber than drunk Canadians. That's still better than either of our families ever expected.

- Patrick Cote tells MMA Mania that the UFC did not have him sign a contract extension prior to his title fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 90 this Saturday night. That's notable since he's at or near the end of his current contract, and typically the UFC makes sure they have a guy locked up before they take a chance on him becoming a belt-holder. At least, that's what they do when they think the challenger has a chance in hell of winning.

- In case you were wondering, Dana White says he will reward Josh Koscheck with a shot at the welterweight title if he beats Thiago Alves this weekend. We all know how much White loves guys who are willing to step in on short notice, and Koscheck has a chance to turn Diego Sanchez's misfortune into a big break for himself. Not that anyone's really clamoring for GSP-Koscheck II at this point.

- MMA Payout takes issue with the UFC's insinuation that Brandon Vera voluntarily sat out a year and then returned a different fighter. They point out that Vera was an early victim of the "Zuffa Freeze Out" and that by running around comparing the old Vera to the new one, Dana White may be unwittingly calling the wrong kind of attention to his own negotiation practices. Damn revisionist history.