DREAM.4 Middleweight Grand Pix 2nd Round 6/15/08 Re-Cap

DREAM 4: Middleweight Grand Prix 2008 2nd Round
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan

They have Nate Marquardt and Ron Kruck break down the Middleweight Second Round match-ups.

Lightweight Grand Prix
Shinya "Yawn" Aoki (15-2) vs. Katsuhiko Nagata (4-2)

Shinya "Yawn" Aoki is probably my least favorite MMA fighter in the world. His style is to latch onto his opponent and take him down and then lay on him until the end of the match. He's awesome at it but it's one of the most boring things to watch in professional sports today. The announcers note that he is an 8 to 1 favorite to win this fight. Aoki also sports some of the most hideous tights in all of MMA.Wake me up when this one is over.

Just as a reminder, in DREAM they have 2 rounds. The first round is 10 minutes and the second round is 5 minutes.

R1- Aoki gets two take downs in the first two minutes but doesn't do anything with them. He just clinches the guy and lays on top of him. Aoki shockingly moves to full mount and lays in some really weak looking punches. Aoki submits Nagata about 5 minutes in with a nice submission. This was much less painful than the other 2 Aoki fights that I've seen. He dominated this and finished it pretty quickly. Aoki advances to the semi-finals of the lightweight tournament.

Winner: Shinya Aoki by Submission R1

Heavyweight bout: Lee Tae-Hyun (1-1) vs. Alistair Overeem (26-11)

Lee has a huge size advantage as he's 295 lbs and Alistair is 225 but Alistair has the experience factor. They note that Alistair is the Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion.

R1- Alistair just destroys Lee very quickly after the opening sequence. About a minute in Alistair hits a great combo and Lee just crumples to the mat. Left hook, overhand right, left hand and a knee and then he hits the mat. Alistair looked phenomenal here but we have to wonder how good his opponent was. I'm looking forward to seeing Alistair take on some more competitive fights.

Winner: Alistair Overeem by KO R1

Light heavyweight bout: Gadzhiev Alavutdin (7-1) vs. Ralek Gracie (1-0)

R1- Gadzhiev looks good early but then gets caught in a take down and gets tapped out by arm bar a little after the 3 minute mark.

Winner: Ralek Gracie by Submission (Arm Bar) R1


Featherweight Bout
Hideo Tokoro (19-13-1) vs. Darren Uyenoyama (4-1)

R1- Tokoro hits a big knee about a minute in and takes Darren down. Then they do some really nifty sprawling with Tokoro with the advantage and nearly getting a couple of submissions. Darren comes back with some nice strikes and looks like he has a chance to finish Tokoro but Tokoro takes him down and nearly misses another submission. This is a really entertaining fight and it was very back and forth in the first round.

R2- Good solid second round but not as exciting as the first round.

Winner: Hideo Tokoro by Decision

Next up they have the girls hold up signs in the ring to a New Kids on the Block classic smash hit. Wow.

They show a promo for the Josh Thomson/Gilbert Melendez Strikeforce show.

They are in the ring and doing some sort of draw for the lightweight tournament semi-finals to see who will fight each other.

Here are the match-ups:
Shinya Aoki vs. Caol Uno
Eddie Alvarez vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri

Both are very intriguing fights. I'm hoping for a Alvarez/Uno finals.


Middleweight Grand Prix Quarterfinals: Gegard Mousasi (21-2-1) vs. Dong-Sik Yoon (4-4)

Yoon comes out to "When Doves Cry" by Prince. Not exactly the song I think of when I want to get pumped for a fight but what do I know. Mousasi upset Denis Kang in the first round, he is 22 years old and is fighting his 25th fight tonight. Mousasi is a 3 to 1 favorite to win the fight.

R1- Mousasi controlls the first half of the round. Yoon got an early take down but after that it was mostly Mousasi controlling by taking Yoon's back twice and controlling the fight with leg kicks when they stood up. Mousasi drills Yoon with a knee at about the 4 minute mark and just crumples Yoon and then get goes after him with some Ground and Pound. Yoon fights back by getting Mousasi in a near arm bar. With 30 seconds left Yoon stretches the arm bar out but Mousasi slips out. Mousasi really controlled the fight but Yoon almost got a submission near the end of the round. Mousasi is clearly in control but he's got to be careful not to get submitted.

R2- Mousasi quickly takes Yoons back to start the round. This kind of moved to what I see as a typical DREAM style where one guy in the fight is either just laying there in the fetal position or laying on his opponent to try and ride him to victory. This was Yoon basically being fetal for the first 4 and a half minutes of Round 2. Mousasi wins this one by a landslide in a fight that was very bland and uneventful. Hopefully the other fights are more exciting than this and I think that Miller/Souza and Sakuraba/Manhoef definitely should be.

Winner: Gegard Mousasi by Decision (Unanimous)

Middleweight Grand Prix Quarterfinals: Zelg Gelasic (8-3) vs. Taiei Kin (3-2)

Kin was also 25-5-1 in K1.

R1- This match had just started and we were about two minutes in when Gelasic got a take down and then the fight was over due to ref stoppage. Upon replay Kin hurt his arm on the take down and he tapped out.The injury was pretty sick as Kin went to brace himself and his arm bend the wrong way, pretty sick looking replay.

Winner: Zelg Gelasic by Submission (Injury)

Middleweight Grand Prix Quarterfinals: Jason "Mayhem" Miller (21-5) vs. Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza (8-1)

I'm looking forward to this fight more than any other fight in the Middleweight Quarterfinals as Souza really impressed me in his last fight and Miller, while talented, really pissed me off the way he disrespected his opponent. Both guys seem really talented and honestly I think this is a bad draw as both of these guys are probably better than the first four guys that we've seen tonight. Miller enters in a Halloween type mask and is throwing money or fake money into the crowd. Then he dances like a white guy trying not to be. Miller's best wins are against Robbie Lawler and Denis Kang. He has losses to Georges St. Pierre and Frank Trig. He's won 9 of his last 10 fights. All of Jacare's wins have been by submission.

R1- Good back and forth action early on with Jacare taking it at Miller and then both guys sprawling for position. Jacare gets the first take down of the fight. Miller reversed and then got caught in a leg lock. They got back to their feet and Miller hit a couple of knees. Jacare returns the favor with a knee in the corner. Jacare gets another take down. Miller does a good job reversing but gets his leg caught again and Jacare reverses. Jacare takes his back at the six minute mark of the round. Jacare control for a few minutes and then Miller escapes and gets a nice punch and takes the top. Miller tried to grab a guillotine but instead whiffed. This was a good round, probably the best fight of the night with the possible exception of the Featherweight Fight. Souza takes the first round as he really controlled the fight. Miller did a good job of minimizing damage and escaping Jacare's submissions but spend most of the round on defense.

R2- Jacare once again is the aggressor coming out to start the fight and gets a glancing high kick on Miller. Some nice sprawling and Miller basically avoids a take down but leaving the ring (didn't look intentional but Jacare definitely would have had a take down here) and then the ref re-starts the fight in the center of the ring. Miller starts to try some combos. Miller seems to be starting to gain some momentum on his feet with about 2 minutes left. Miller tries a guillotine but Jacare slams him down and escapes after the take down. Miller gives up his back and gets to his feet but Jacare takes him down again. Jacare gets full mount and Miller gives up his back and reverses and he is in Jacare's guard. Pretty close fight but Jacare wins this one based on controlling the fight and getting a ton of take downs. Miller started to push the pace towards the end of the fight but he just didn't inflict much (or enough) damage on his opponent. Nice to see Miller get a loss on his record, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Winner: Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza by Decision (Unanimous)

[b]Middleweight Grand Prix Quarterfinals: Kazushi Sakuraba (24-10-1) vs. Melvin Manhoef (21-4-1)

Manhoef has 20 wins by TKO or KO. He also has a kick boxing record of 34-4 with 25 T(KOs). Sakuraba has 24 wins with 17 by submission and holds victories over Rampage, Renzo Gracie and Ken Shamrock.

R1- Both guys being very cautious in the early going. Manhoef finally opens things up and just goes all after Skauraba and is just destroying him. The ref stops it at one and a half minutes of round one after Manhoef just ate him up for about 30 seconds non-stop. Great showing by Manhoef.

Winner: Melvin Manhoef by TKO (Strikes)

So the Middleweight Semi-Finals will consist of:
Melvin Manhoef
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza
Zelg Gelasic
Gegard Mousasi

Hopefully we get a Manhoef/Souza finals.

Kind of a lackluster show from DREAM. The best fights were the featherweight fight and Jacare/Miller but neither of them is really worth going out of your way to see. Alistair Overeem looked really good in his fight and I look forward to seeing him fight more. Manhoef also had a great showing in a Elite XC style beatdown in the Main Event.