Dream.14

[Tony_Montana]

No thread on this yet?

Nick Diaz vs. Hayato Sakurai
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Ralek Gracie
Joachim Hansen vs. Hiroyuki Takaya
Norifumi Yamamoto vs. Federico Lopez
Hideo Tokoro vs. Akiyo Nishiura
Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Takafumi Otsuka
Yoshiro Maeda vs. Kenji Osawa
Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Imani Lee


Anybody else looking forward to watching this event? It's coming on at 3am or something, no? Always rooting for Diaz. His recent Dream interview was pretty subdued but I don't think many other MMA guys have as nuanced opinions about MMA as he does.

"... that's why I am the way i am today [because] I was more of a Hayato Sakurai and Genki Sudo fan than I was a Randy Couture fan."

[CPT]

Hansen vs. Takaya and Tokoro vs. Wicky should be awesome.

Diaz vs. Sakurai is not competitive, IMO.

Would be nice to see an old school performance from Kid.

[cowboyronnie]

Mach's the craftiest fighter you could face. But if Diaz can hang with the one-strike KO power of Zaromkis and Smith, he'll have no problem with the much smaller Mach. Reach, above all, decides this one. It's just a bad match-up for Sakurai.

Hate Tokoro, refusing to watch that. But I love Takaya and Hansen both - two 'tough guys' from different cultures. Cool.

[cowboyronnie]

Mach's got whatshisface in his corner and he might actually be short + crafty enough to get under strikes, then again.

[CPT]

What's your beef with Tokoro?

The dude has awesome fights.

[cowboyronnie]

He doesn't do any one thing well. He looks straight from a metrosexual boy band.

[Nemesis21]

What tv is this on ? Or PPV ? or ?

[cowboyronnie]

HDTV, at like 3:00AM for live broadcast then re-broad later.

[spykelee]

yea it's on HDNet @ 3:00am this morning... if only i was working night shift tonight

[Nemesis21]

Ok thanks. Don't have HD

[CPT]

Finally watched this. Took me a while to get around to it because I saw the results of the two main fights.

Good show, but I had to fast forward a lot of it because 1) it was 4 god damn hours long (which is actually kind of short for Japanese MMA) and 2) I can't stand Michael Schiavello.

Diaz vs. Sakurai was pretty short, but better than I expected while it lasted. It's weird how calm and respectful Nick Diaz is when he's in Japan.

Sakuraba vs. Ralek Gracie was better than I expected as well. Some close sub attempts, but ultimately ended in a decision for Gracie. This is the kind of fight I'm okay with Sakuraba being in, but it would be better if he could actually win. I still think he should fight Frank Shamrock on NYE in Japan, but the clock is ticking on that one.

Takaya impressed the hell out of me by knocking Hellboy the fugg out. No easy task. Hansen's career at FW is not going well so far, but I still think he has the potential to be one of the top guys in the weightclass.

Wicky vs. Tokoro was pretty good. Short though. Wicky is fun to watch. His stance makes it seem like anything could happen at any time (that goes for him getting KO'd too, so it may not be the best idea competitively).

Kid had a nice KO.

Don't remember much about the other fights.

[cowboyronnie]

Wicky was great. I liked it.

I understand Saku going against a grappler is much easier to swallow - Jesus Christ, if they put him in with anymore vicious strikers, I will personally begin a boycott of FGE MMA. But risking the Gracie Killer monicker...IDK, man. It's depressing he lost to a Gracie. But every fight is going to be a risk, I guess; no glory without it.

Finally watched this. Took me a while to get around to it because I saw the results of the two main fights.

Good show, but I had to fast forward a lot of it because 1) it was 4 god damn hours long (which is actually kind of short for Japanese MMA) and 2) I can't stand Michael Schiavello.

Diaz vs. Sakurai was pretty short, but better than I expected while it lasted. It's weird how calm and respectful Nick Diaz is when he's in Japan.

Sakuraba vs. Ralek Gracie was better than I expected as well. Some close sub attempts, but ultimately ended in a decision for Gracie. This is the kind of fight I'm okay with Sakuraba being in, but it would be better if he could actually win. I still think he should fight Frank Shamrock on NYE in Japan, but the clock is ticking on that one.

Takaya impressed the hell out of me by knocking Hellboy the fugg out. No easy task. Hansen's career at FW is not going well so far, but I still think he has the potential to be one of the top guys in the weightclass.

Wicky vs. Tokoro was pretty good. Short though. Wicky is fun to watch. His stance makes it seem like anything could happen at any time (that goes for him getting KO'd too, so it may not be the best idea competitively).

Kid had a nice KO.

Don't remember much about the other fights.

Sakurai looked pretty good, aside from the eff up on the sub. He covered the distance really well to get past Diaz's range, which is no small feat. Diaz has used that range almost perfectly in the past few years. Zaromkis has him a little messed-up, but Diaz has been walking much bigger dudes down over his Strikeforce career. I've never seen him go for the takedown that quickly. Maybe because there was so little machismo, he felt like had less to prove.

[cowboyronnie]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RqqSMAco4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]