Dream 11 on Oct 6/09

Post #1 » by **CPT** » Sat Oct 3, 2009 3:20 am

Almost forgot about this event. Has the semi-finals and finals of the FW tournament, the semi-finals of the Super Hulk tournament (although that became a lot less interesting when Sapp got subbed in for Mousasi), and Aoki vs. Hansen III for the Dream LW Championship. Not bad at all.

DREAM.11's full card includes:

* Champ Joachim Hansen vs. Shinya Aoki (for DREAM lightweight title)
* Featherweight grand prix finale
* Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Melchor "Barracuda" Manibusan
* Daisuke Nakamura vs. TBA*
* Bibiano Fernanders vs. Joe Warren+
* Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Hideo Tokoro+
* Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Daiki "DJ.taiki" Hata^
* Hong Man Choi vs. Ikuhisa Minowa#
* Bob Sapp vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou#

+ - Featherweight grand prix semifinal
^ - Featherweight grand prix reserve bout
# - "Super Hulk" semifinal

TBA was going to be JZ Calvan, but I he got injured as usual.

I like Aoki in the main event (hopefully it's a good fight and not a quick finish either way), Warren over Takaya in the FW finals, Kawajiri, DJ.Taiki, and I think I like Minowaman and Sokoudjou in the Super Hulk tournament.

I have to say, even though the fighters who advanced deserve to be there because they won, I think I'd be more excited about this event if the likes of Kid Yamamoto and Imanari were still alive.

4ho5ive · Post #2 » by **4ho5ive** » Sun Oct 4, 2009 1:06 am

I thought this was later in the month. Kinda really dissapointed that Mousasi isnt gonna fight Soko. I was really excited for that and seeing him in the SHGP finale but oh well. I got Aoki as well in the LW title fight. All in all should be a good card though.

Cammo101 · Post #3 » by **Cammo101** » Sun Oct 4, 2009 1:26 am

Mousasi and JZ pulling out really hurts this card.

4ho5ive · Post #4 » by **4ho5ive** » Sun Oct 4, 2009 5:59 am

This card just got a whole lot more awesomer

http://mmamania.com/2009/10/03/dream-11 ... -in-japan/

Sakuraba v. TBA

Edit: Didnt read the entire article, Nakamura is being moved to another card after being unable to find a fight for him. Still Saku is the man

Post #5 » by **CPT** » Sun Oct 4, 2009 6:47 am

Nice. Saku's looked rough lately, but I'm still up to see him fight. Hopefully it's a good matchup though. I don't really want to see him against someone like Melvin Manhoef ever again.

4ho5ive · Post #6 » by **4ho5ive** » Sun Oct 4, 2009 9:15 pm

Looks like Saku will be fighting former boxer Rubin Williams

http://fiveouncesofpain.com/2009/10/04/ ... -dream-11/

Susan · Post #7 » by **Susan** » Tue Oct 6, 2009 5:55 pm

AOKI AND MINOWAMAN.

Cammo101 · Post #8 » by **Cammo101** » Wed Oct 7, 2009 3:36 am

Aoki is a giant puss. Anytime anyone hits him he looks to the refs for a handout. He has good BJJ, but his lack of toughness would get him murdered by BJ Penn or KenFlo.

That last fight was great, even if I did not agree with the dicision. Though I was the one who called Bibiano winning it all when everyone was falling in love with Joe Warren. *pats back*

Ed Wood · Post #9 » by **Ed Wood** » Wed Oct 7, 2009 3:50 am

Cammo101 wrote:Aoki is a giant puss. Anytime anyone hits him he looks to the refs for a handout. He has good BJJ, but his lack of toughness would get him murdered by BJ Penn or KenFlo.

That last fight was great, even if I did not agree with the dicision. Though I was the one who called Bibiano winning it all when everyone was falling in love with Joe Warren. *pats back*

Anybody with the takedown defense to keep Aoki standing would give him trouble, so most of the upper echelon of lightweights within the UFC. Heck, I'd give Gray Maynard and Diego Sanchez a decent shot of smothering him for a few rounds even if the fight went to the ground.

But in this fight specifically I don't have any problem with Aoki getting time for recovery. He took a low blow and then used the full time allowed for recovery, something more fighters would be smart to do. Generally, however, I agree that he depends upon homecooking to bail him out and it makes it hard to root for the guy even though his submission game is a lot of fun to watch.

Cammo101 · Post #10 » by **Cammo101** » Wed Oct 7, 2009 4:18 am

Ed Wood wrote:
Cammo101 wrote:Aoki is a giant puss. Anytime anyone hits him he looks to the refs for a handout. He has good BJJ, but his lack of toughness would get him murdered by BJ Penn or KenFlo.

That last fight was great, even if I did not agree with the dicision. Though I was the one who called Bibiano winning it all when everyone was falling in love with Joe Warren. *pats back*

Anybody with the takedown defense to keep Aoki standing would give him trouble, so most of the upper echelon of lightweights within the UFC. Heck, I'd give Gray Maynard and Diego Sanchez a decent shot of smothering him for a few rounds even if the fight went to the ground.

But in this fight specifically I don't have any problem with Aoki getting time for recovery. He took a low blow and then used the full time allowed for recovery, something more fighters would be smart to do. Generally, however, I agree that he depends upon homecooking to bail him out and it makes it hard to root for the guy even though his submission game is a lot of fun to watch.

The problem is that the referee did not even consider stopping the fight until Aoki basically begged for it. He had no intention of it and the minute Aoki complained, it was stopped. Not only that, but it seemed like any punch not directly on Aoki's face was considered a punch to the back of his head.

Ed Wood · Post #11 » by **Ed Wood** » Wed Oct 7, 2009 4:30 am

Oh sure, Aoki is treated like a porcelain figurine in rainbow pants. His status absolutely allowed him to draw attention to the shot that he took whereas another fighter may not have had the fight stopped, I'm just saying that in that particular case the stoppage was warranted. I share your general frustration with the way Aoki almost gets around having to participate in MMA when he's looking to grapple and anything coming back at him is a cheap shot. I hold out hope that he'll be thrown into the deep end against Kawajiri, pop his nose like you pop your collar Crusher.

Edit: And I'm ordinarily so head over heals for pretty grappling I want to make clear that it takes a lot of nonsense to make me root against Aoki.

Cammo101 · Post #12 » by **Cammo101** » Wed Oct 7, 2009 5:07 am

Ed Wood wrote:Oh sure, Aoki is treated like a porcelain figurine in rainbow pants. His status absolutely allowed him to draw attention to the shot that he took whereas another fighter may not have had the fight stopped, I'm just saying that in that particular case the stoppage was warranted. I share your general frustration with the way Aoki almost gets around having to participate in MMA when he's looking to grapple and anything coming back at him is a cheap shot. I hold out hope that he'll be thrown into the deep end against Kawajiri, pop his nose like you pop your collar Crusher.

Edit: And I'm ordinarily so head over heals for pretty grappling I want to make clear that it takes a lot of nonsense to make me root against Aoki.

I love watching Aoki finish people, but I hate watching him fight. I agree that Kawajiri will likely pound him into the ground.

Ed Wood · Post #13 » by **Ed Wood** » Thu Oct 8, 2009 2:28 am

It seems that Mr. Shinya Aoki may feel as we do with regard to his chances of successfully defending his newly obtained belt against Tatsuya Kawajiri and is not overly eager to sample the Crusher experience. I can't imagine that he'd actually leave DREAM for the UFC any time in the near future, certainly not while he's the lightweight title holder for the organization. He has such a strong following in Japan and frankly while I expect him to loose to Kawajiri and therefore some of his motivation to compete in DREAM I don't see him ascending to the position of prominence of even a top contender in the UFC so playing the John Fitch that everybody in Japan loves to Kawajiri's GSP seems to be preferable to the UFC alternative to me.

Aoki is by no means the product of the systemic bias in his favor and his submission game is indisputably dangerous but I just can't see him managing to catch BJ Penn with a sub, and that's the only way he could possibly beat Penn. If he is legitimately interested in fighting the best lightweights in the world regardless of his own probability of victory I totally endorse that and I'd love to see him fight BJ (not because I want to see Aoki out-grappled and beat up, it would be a good fight) and the rest of the top of the UFC. But if he's trying to either duck Kawajiri or to force DREAM to pay a premium to retain him I'd get a kick out of seeing him turning his head away from some wrestley guy's punches for for a few rounds while angry Americans scream at him to stand and bang.

Cammo101 · Post #14 » by **Cammo101** » Thu Oct 8, 2009 3:59 am

BJ Penn would keep the fight standing and beat the piss out of Aoki.

Post #15 » by **CPT** » Thu Oct 8, 2009 12:52 pm

I go back and forth on whether or not I like Aoki. I love watching him finish fights with a slick submission, but sometimes the rest of his behaviour turns me against him. I also go back and forth about how good I think he is. I think he deserves to be considered a top 3-5 LW....probably #2, but I also think there are about 5-10 guys I think would probably beat him.

BJ Penn would wreck him. It would be more interesting as a grappling match. Then there's a group that includes Kawajiri (who he may or may not be ducking now), Sanchez, Florian, Sherk, Griffin, Maynard, and Edgar who I would pick to beat him, but I would acknowledge that the fight could go either way. Then there's even guys like Huerta, Guida and Stevenson who I think would have a decent shot. The UFC would probably just be a series of bad matchups for him. He'd get controlled by a lot of those big, strong wrestlers, who would probably outweigh him by a good 15-20 lbs on fight night. Not only that, but add elbows and take away his magic submission pants, and you have a recipe for a lot of fights that look like the one against Sakurai.

That all being said, I really hope he fights at K-1 Dynamite, and it should be against Kawajiri.