Sunday, October 25, 2009

By Isaac Kuhlman

  So, the much-anticipated debut of DREAM's "White Cage" and 3 5-minute rounds was a little less than fantastic (the cage helped keep action going, but the shorter 1st round made the rounds seem really short), but the fights that were on the card did not disappoint. The only thing missing was Paulo Filho who didn't show for the fight and was not able to be located until his mom (that's right, his mom) called DREAM organizers to tell them he couldn't get his Visa to fight on the card. That said, Eddie Alvarez, Alistair Overeem, Marius Zaromskis, and Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba all looked incredible in their victories.

  The main event was Alistair Overeem versus James Thompson. If you remember way back when, Thompson was defeated by Kimbo Slice in the Elite XC because he had a cauliflower ear explode into blood. It looked as if he had surgery to fix the ear, but his fighting skills were still not much to be seen as he was choked out by a standing guillotine at 33 seconds of round 1. Overeem is no Kimbo Slice, and that is a good thing. He is the Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion (though, he hasn't defended his title since getting it almost 2 years ago), and he is a big, bad dude.

  Overeem has fought Shogun Rua, Chuck Liddell, Vitor Belfort, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, and many, many more of the top-ranked heavyweights and light heavyweights in the world. His record is 31-11 in MMA, but his striking and athletic structure make him a threat to any fighter in the world. He is the guy Fedor Emelianenko must fight for the Strikeforce belt. That should be interesting.

  The American, Eddie Alvarez, who is the Bellator Lightweight Champion, came in fighting Katsunori "The Creepy Faced Killer" Kikuno. Well, that's what I call Kikuno anyway. Kikuno has one of those fight faces that make him look like a serial killer by day and fighter by night. The fight was actually better than I expected, because Kikuno looked like he was ready for anything Alvarez had.

  Unfortunately for Kikuno, he expected Alvarez to have only good strikes. As it got to the ground in the 3rd round, Kikuno was in pretty good position. Alvarez is just really good on the ground. He reversed position and got a tight arm triangle that made Kikuno tap. It was pretty fast and unexpected, because Kikuno was winning in the grappling struggle for most of the fight. Alvarez improves to 19-2, and is one of the top 3 lightweight fighters in the world. His only losses were to Shinya Aoki and Nick Thompson (2.5 years ago), and they are both very good fighters.

  Kazushi Sakuraba proved that his legend is as great in Japan as any fighters legend is in their home country. With EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, questioning the age and combat wear-and-tear of Sakuraba, the man, the myth, the legend came out and won again. I will say that he was getting absolutely tattered in the fight, but he transitioned from heel hook, to ankle lock, to toe hold, to knee bar all while being punched and elbowed brutally.

  He won the fight against Zelg Galesic, who rose to prominence in Japan from his flying armbar submission over Magomed Sultanakhmedov in DREAM 2. The fight was brutal, but Sakuraba looked cool as a cucumber with his submission victory at 1:40 of round 1. The referee almost stopped the fight because of the amount of damage Galesic was inflicting, but he saw that Sakuraba was playing "defense" by using offensive submission skills.

  And, of course, I can't leave out one of the most exciting fighters in the world, Marius Zaromskis. The Lithuanian-born fighter has jumped from nothing to international sensation in about 4 months. He won the DREAM Welterweight Grand Prix in July, and has been steamrolling people with vicious head kicks the whole way. I have his KO over Jason High for that title as one of the greatest knockouts of the year. This fight was not much different.

  His opponent, Ho Bae Myeon, is no slouch. However, no matter how a fighter tries to prepare themself for a head kick, it still hurts when it is landed. That's exactly what happened to Myeon. Zaromskis came out with a flying knee attempt, and almost got dropped for his trouble as Myeon counter punched Zaromskis as he landed. That backed Zaromskis off for about 10 seconds, and then a brutal head kick that when straight through the blocking hand of Myeon knocked Myeon out cold. The fight was short, sweet, and violent. It ended at 19 seconds of round 1.

  If you haven't seen a DREAM card yet, then you are absolutely missing out on some of the greatest fights and fighters in the world. It is one of the most dynamic shows in the world. If you don't know anything about DREAM, it is basically the exact same organization that was the Pride FC. They sold the rights and fighters of Pride to the UFC for A LOT of money. They took that money and reorganized their company (Olympia) into DREAM where they lost basically nothing but older fighters in the deal.

  Oh, and I have to point out that Dong Sik Yoon made believers of us all by defeating Tarec Saffiedine by split decision. The "Dong Bar", as many followers call him, is an ageless wonder, and has been somewhat resurfacing lately.

  For more information check out DREAM's coverage on HDNet Fights. DREAM's official website is in Japanese, so most people can't read it, but it is available here.