DREAM Japan bantamweight GP Final
July 16, 2011 - Tokyo, Japan - On one of the hottest days of the year thus far and following a magnitude 4 earthquake that rocked through Tokyo, the conclusion to the “FIGHT FOR JAPAN” DREAM Bantamweight Japan Tournament came to its dramatic conclusion at the Ariake Colossuem.
The bantamweight belt wasn’t the only thing up for grabs though. Both featherweight and light-heavyweight titles were on the line. And there were several other superfights rounding out what was a great card. The fighters all really tried to impress tonight, and even while losing some of the showed heart the level of which is rarely displayed these days.
In May of this year this pair of combatants’ defeated 2 top fighters in a single night to secure their place in tonight’s Fight For Japan DREAM Bantamweight Japan Tournament final. Hideo Tokoro took on Yoshiro Maeda and Atsushi Yamamoto that night, winning once via decision, and once with a stoppage. Masakazu Imanari too stopped one of his opponents, and outfought the other in a close decision. Tonight, they finally faced each other. It’s an awesome match-up even excluding the tournament, as Tokoro is the sort of fighter that throws caution to the wind at the faintest sniff of a finish, while Iminari’s style requires the utmost caution as he can have you tapping before your eyelid has had a chance to complete a blink.
Both fighters flew out of their corner and clashed in center-ring with jumping knees as the first round began. It hit the mat and the violent cleaner drilled the leg-lock specialist with 2 or 3 serious punches before having his hands tied up until the referee called fight. You could almost taste the pressure in the air that these two had built up between them. Imanari attempted a few jumping knees/kicks, but most ended with him being countered by Tokoro as he moved out of grasping range. At one stage Tokoro literally kicked Imanari’s legs out from under him. Imanari then pulled guard near Tokoro’s corner, and subsequently ate some of the prettiest and softest pounding in the entire history of MMA until the bell rang.
In the second Imanari seemed more determined, but Tokoro was significantly more confident than in the first round. He countered Imanari far better, landed some harder shots when it hit the ground, and even escaped one of Imanari’s inescapable Achilles holds. Imanari looked much improved, but this was a new, more mature Tokoro that seemed to have lifted his game to a new level.
When the bout ended most people around me felt Tokoro had taken it clearly, but there was some discussion of how the judges might count the leg submission of Imanari’s. As the judge’s decisions were read, it was clear all of them felt that Tokoro had done all he needed to as well.
Imanari looked shattered. He did say he would reassess his training, and come back to take the next tournament starting in September though, and the look in his eye was that of complete determination. Tokoro on the other hand was beside himself. And luckily for him, he didn’t even forget to wish his wife a happy birthday at the end of his victory speech.
The featherweight title was also on the line tonight. Belt holder, Hiroyuki Takaya is coming off an embarrassing undercard loss on the April StrikeForce card that he has said made him more motivated than ever to get back to really fighting, rather than just competing. That might just be the key to defeating his opponent, but then the wrestling Olympian hasn’t lost a single fight in over 2 years. In fact, Kazuyuki Miyata’s last loss was at DREAM.1, and that includes a K-1 MAX fight.
“Bancho” came out swinging hard from the start like we’ve come to expect. He actually tagged Miyata a few times until the wrestler tied him up for a takedown. Miyata had added a nice knee in the clinch to his arsenal which seemed quite effective as his opponents expect him to immediately go for the takedown. It disrupted Takaya’s style, but was far from stopping him. Time after time he advanced with hooks, but the time he missed was when Miyata drove him to the ground and gained full-mount in one smooth motion. He landed 12 punches before Takaya gave his back up to get to his feet, along the way eating more of those punches, and a knee to round off the combination. Takaya wasn’t hurt though.
In the second round things remained close. Both fighters started to incorporate the lowkicks, but both seemed to have lost a little bit of the sting in their punches. Takaya was giving it his all. And I am sure Miyata was too, but it felt like if Miyata just committed 5% more he could turn things around. Perhaps Takaya’s takedown defense surprised him and threw him off his game a little, but thankfully it didn’t stop him trading punches with the champ.
The third round had more knees in the clinch thrown than any 2 Muay Thai fights put together. Miyata threw everything he had at Takaya, but failed to secure his patented takedowns. Instead, he doubled and tripled up those previously mentioned knees. Midway through the round, both fighters’ right eyes started to swell up, and Takaya’s to ooze blood.
When the final bell rang it was close. Really close. The first judge went to Takaya. The second to Miyata. The final announcement was dragged out, and it too went to the reigning champion, Takaya.
Light heavyweight title holder and undefeated-in-DREAM fighter Gegard Mousasi was back fighting in Japan after drawing in a StrikeForce bout that combat sports fans world-wide agree he’d won by a landslide to defend his DREAM title. The challenger is Judoka Olympian, Hiroshi Izumi.
Izumi came out actively. He was throwing hooks and front leg sweeps, but his short resulted in everything landing on nothing but open air. After watching him for some time, Gegard threw a jab that rocked his opponent. It was his first punch of the fight. The second jab he threw knocked out both Izumi’s mouthpiece and one of his front teeth. The champion then attacked the body for a punch or two, defended a takedown, and finally threw a right-straight. It connected. Hard. And Izumi went down. Gegard jumped on him and started to pound, yet Izumi rose to his feet like a zombie rising from its own death. He somehow made it to a standing position, all the while with Gegard pounding him relentlessly. With his back to Gegard and a “no one home” look on his face, Izumi was looking out at the crowd while being nailed with massive hooks. The referee stepped in to save him from unnecessary damage eventually, and Gegard had successfully defended his DREAM title.
Fighting for third place in the Fight For Japan Bantamweight JAPAN Tournament and the final opening for the upcoming World Bantamweight Tournament, Kenji Osawa was here to take on Keisuke Fujiwara. After Astushi Yamamoto dropped out of this bout with a detached retina, it gave Fujiwara another lease on tournament life and in turn set up an unusual bout between two fighters that had the displeasure of both being beaten by Imanari on the last card.
The skirmish opened with both fighters fainting strikes, before Osawa intelligently closed the gap and took Fujiwara to the mat. He had him wrapped up the entire way with his legs triangled, minimizing any risks. Before anyone knew it, that caution had turned into a side-choke, and Osawa flipped over Fujiwara’s side to tighten things up. Fujiwara had done his homework though, and was also playing this patiently. He defended things well, and burst out and to his feet when the opportunity presented itself. Osawa immediately took it back to the mat though.
The same pattern continued throughout the round, and much of the second. At one point Fujiwara broke free long enough to land three clean knees to Osawa’s face. This seemed to shake up Osawa a good deal, and while he still got takedowns after it, Fujiwara was the aggressor on the ground when it came to looking for submissions.
At the end of the bout though, all of the judges saw that it was Osawa that controlled about 13 minutes of the fight, and he also had the better attempts to end the bout.
Tatsuya Kawajiri made his comeback from the Gilbert Meledez fight tonight against Drew Fickett. He actually seriously considered retirement after the fight against Gilbert, so his mental condition here was a point I was interested in seeing.
He came out throwing lowkicks to set up a takedown I suspect, but Drew grabbed his neck for a choke and tried to pull guard. Kawajiri released the arm from around his neck in a standing position before slamming the taller fighter to the mat and pounding away as his name “Crusher” suggests. At one point Kawajiri stood in Drew’s guard throwing down, and Drew was left covering up his head with both arms like he was hearing strange voices in his head. When the flurry stopped he smiled like a man possessed, so perhaps he was. The American tried to go for another choke, and Kawajiri used that chance to gain full mount, and keep up the “crushing”. He triangle Drew’s legs and just never gave him time to breath. Punch after punch resulted in Drew giving his back, but Kawajiri wasn’t looking for a submission. He just kept punching. The referee finally stopped the bout. Drew took a long time to gain his footing.
Kawajiri then addressed the crowd and said that he truly was considering retirement. He said he has his own dream though, and it’s a big one. The first step in the dream is to destroy everyone in his own weight class in DREAM, and that’s exactly what he plans to do.
The Welterweight title was supposed to be on the line tonight. Hayato “MACH” Sakurai was set to take on the man that knocked him out exactly 2 years ago, Marius “The Whitemare” Zaromskis. Unfortunately Sakurai injured his right leg and had to drop out, opening the door to last-minute replacement Eiji Ishikawa. The title was taken off the table, and due to the late notice, a catch-weight of 79kg was decided on for this fight. This was Marius’ first fight in Japan since kicking Sakuraba’s ear off at DYNAMITE!!
Marius shot out from his corner, but was quickly tied up by the GRABAKA fighter. The Lithuanian shrugged him off, and proceeded to deliver a festival of pain. Stand up from hell, and pounding from top position that had me cringing. When he landed a massive north/south position knee, the media all cringed out loud. But, Ishikawa was still alive. And more surprisingly, still trying to form some sort of offense. His right eye almost closed, Ishikawa advanced with a right hook only to be countered so hard he fell to his knees. He didn’t waste this position though. He crawled forward to grab a single leg and try to pull Marius to the mat.
In the second round, Ishikawa continued to display to the world just how much punishment he could take. This round was also witness to one of the weirdest stand ups I have witnessed live. After a successful sprawl Marius grabbed Ishikawa in an anaconda choke, and was consistently kneeing him to the top and side of his head. Between knees the referee puzzlingly called them to their feet, where Marius carried on his punching demonstration. So confident he became that he threw his second backflip-double knee attack in the fight.
This was the second unanimous decision of the night, but I am sure Ishikawa managed to win over some of the locals with his huge display of heart. Marius then wished Sakurai a fast recovery, as he would like to fight him next. He also thanked Ishikawa for taking the fight on such short notice.
In a light-heavyweight superfight, 10-year veteran of UFC, Bodog and StrikeForce Trevor Prangley took on Japanese family man Tatsuya Mizuno.
Mizuno was mixing up his striking better than I have ever seen before, and he added in a nice middle-knee just regularly enough that it wasn’t completely obvious. I huge right hand (where it seemed like the knuckle hit Mizuno’s eye) by Trevor followed by a knee to the nose about a quarter of the way into the opener seemed to rob the Japanese fighter of some of his confidence though. Things were definitely starting to go in Trevor’s direction. His punches were finding their mark, and they were power-shots only. Almost at the half-way point, Mizuno landed a very solid knee to Trevor’s bread-basket that stopped him in his tracks for a split second. Within seconds, he landed an even harder and better timed knee to the same spot and Trevor went down wincing in pain. Mizuno jumped on top of him raining down punches until the referee jumped in and stopped the bout.
Lightweights Eiji Mitsuoka and Bruno Carvalho opened the show tonight, and really mixed things up from the start. After a brief clash on the feet Mitsuoka pressured Bruno into the corner where the attempted a takedown. Bruno has a decent guillotine choke though, and he placed Mitsuoka in it. The Japanese fighter battled his way out of it, wobbling as his head popped loose showing just how close he was to being finished. He then went on the offense and got Bruno on his back where he got full mount before transitioning into a front-choke position. The action never slowed. They exchanged heel-holds, front-chokes and Bruno made moves towards a triangle just before the bell ended the first.
In the second round Mitsuka’s wrestling and ground control slowly began to take over. Bruno remained as dangerous as ever, but it was Mitsuoka that chose where the fight took place. Much of that was with him in or passing Bruno’s guard, and a decent portion even spent in full mount. In the final 15 seconds Bruno reversed positions, but could do nothing before regulation time ended. He playfully punched Mitsuoka in the stomach after giving him a hug, impressed that the Japanese fighter prevented him from fighting his own gameplan.
The judges were unanimous in giving the victory to Mitsuoka.
There will be a press conference tomorrow for the title holders and other stand-out performers. Checking back here for further updates f announcements! The results will also be uploaded here real time! Also follow us on twitter at @dreamPR and @k1_official so you can be the first to know when and where these announcements will take place.
18 July 2011
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