Gesias Calvancante

(Image courtesy of Nightmare of Battle)

Two headlining matchups were announced today for DREAM and K-1's combined "FieLDS Dynamite!!: Yuuki no Chikara 2008" event, which will be held on New Year's Eve at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan. In the main event spot will be Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba facing Kiyoshi Tamura. Sakuraba and Tamura are former UWFi pro wrestling stablemates who were previously supposed to fight each other in PRIDE, but the match never came together; there is a rumored rivalry between them dating back to Tamura's disrespectful treatment of Sakuraba in the early '90s when Tamura was a UWFi star and Sakuraba was a struggling up-and-comer. Tamura's last ring appearance was a 57-second knockout victory over Masakatsu Funaki at DREAM 2 in April, while Sakuraba is coming off his brutal beating at the hands of Melvin Manhoef at DREAM 4 in June.

In the co-main event spot is a non-title fight between DREAM lightweight GP winner Joachim Hansen and highly regarded American Top Team fighter Gesias "JZ" Calvancante. Also on the card is a four-man K-1 tournament featuring Ryuya Kusakabe, Koya Urabe, Shota Shimada, and 16-year old Japanese kickboxing phenom "Hiroya"; check out some of his work here.

(Crazy Anderson Silva wallpaper courtesy of Olieng.net)

Over the last couple weeks, Matt Serra came crashing back down to Earth, Rich Franklin got his balls back, Shinya Aoki smothered JZ, and Denis Kang went out like a bitch. So if you haven't swung by our Power Rankings section lately, please do so. In particular, the lightweight, middleweight, and pound-for-pound lists were freshly updated today. And you may be surprised at how high I ranked Travis Wiuff in the heavyweight division for going all the way at YAMMA 1...

Anyway, give 'em a look and let us know if you see things differently.

(BG)

(Aoki's fancy flying guard-pull against Calvancante.)

Are you sitting down? Sherdog is reporting that Shinya Aoki suffered a facial injury in his fight against Gesias Calvancante yesterday, and will not be able to participate in the second round of DREAM's lightweight grand prix (May 11th; Saitama, Japan). UPDATE: Sherdog amends their story: "Calvancante was approached about replacing the Japanese fighter, but the 24-year-old American Top Team representative could not come to terms with the promotion and has since left Japan."

Aoki always seemed to have misgivings about continuing in the tournament. Here's what he said in an interview on DREAM's website a couple weeks ago:

Are you thinking about fighting on May 11 in DREAM 3?
I win on Apr 29, but not fight on May 11. That's their business and not me. I'm not well-considered person to agree with fighting on May 11. I'm not thinking about a fight after Apr 29. I may fight if I had an easy fight on Apr 29.

Don't you want a belt?
Not interested in. My next fight has more meaning than a belt.

And in another interview...

"I have no schedule after April 29 so far. I don't even think about the 2R. I will have a good result on April 29 and clean up my past."

So, it's safe to say that Aoki's heart wasn't in DREAM's lightweight GP past the marquee matchup of him vs. Calvancante, and now this so-called "facial injury" is sounding a little too convenient. But hey, he's in good company: Kazushi Sakuraba wants nothing to do with DREAM's middleweight tournament. Good lord, is it too much to ask for DREAM to book fighters that actually want to be involved with them?

We'll kick things off with Kiyoshi Tamura's quick demolition of Masakatsu Funaki, which turned out to be the night's only stoppage-by-strikes (action starts at the 1:17 mark). More vids after the jump; for a recap of the event, click here.

UPDATE: All the broken vids have been replaced...hopefully this batch will last a bit longer.

(Shinya Aoki, man of steel.)

While us Westerners were hitting the snooze button over and over again this morning, DREAM's second event was going down in Japan's Saitama Super Arena. In a night full of surprises, the biggest one was how easily Shinya Aoki handled Gesias Calvancante. The "Master of Jumping Locks" played it true to his nickname, spending a large chunk of the first round hanging off of Calvancante's back and working for a choke, and nailing a flying guard-pull in the second round. JZ landed shots where he could, but Aoki's ground control and multiple submission attempts convinced the judges to give him the match unanimously. With the win, Aoki advances to the second round of DREAM's lightweight tournament, which goes down May 11th. Now that he's made it through Calvancante, he's a strong favorite to go all the way.

The rest of DREAM.2 was devoted to the first round of their middleweight grand prix. Kazushi Sakuraba's match with Kyokushin karate practitioner Andrews Nakahara (0-0 in MMA competition before the fight) was as lopsided as expected, with Sak schooling Nakahara on the ground en route to a neck crank submission. But there were two major upsets on the card, as crowd favorites Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa and Denis Kang were eliminated from the GP. Minowa put in a lethargic performance against Taiei Kin — who owned a 2-2 record coming into the tournament — and was mostly unsuccessful in his repeated takedown attempts, absorbing a ton of leg kicks and knees to the head in the process. During the times when Minowa did have Kin on the ground, he failed to inflict any damage, and was eventually handed a loss by the judges.

Denis Kang's submission loss to Gegard Mousasi was just as disappointing. After an energetic striking exchange to open the match, Kang took Mousasi to the ground and worked for a kimura while dodging Mousasi's rabbit-punches and knees to the head on the ground (both of which seemed to be quite legal at this event, for some reason). But Kang was eventually kicked off, and when he went in to throw a punch at the downed Mousasi he literally fell into a triangle choke; it was the kind of a loss that only an amateur would experience, and it would be hard to argue for Kang as a top-ten middleweight at this point.

Full results are after the jump. Come back later for videos from the event, and if you get HDNet, set your DVRs now: DREAM.2 will be broadcast this Saturday, May 3rd, at 10:30 p.m. ET.