DREAM

Diaz Confirms Sakurai Title Bout

Following his impressive victory over reigning welterweight King of Pancrase Katsuya Inoue, EliteXC’s Nick Diaz already has quite the test waiting for him following his scheduled fight against Muhsin Corbbrey in June - a DREAM title bout against Japanese veteran Hayato “Mach” Sakurai in July.

Diaz confirmed the potential matchup with Sherdog.com, stating that a fight against Sakurai would be one against a fighter that he looks up to.

“You know, there’s a lot of other people I’d like to fight, just considering Sakurai is a lot older than I am,” Diaz said in the report. “He’s probably in his late 30’s I’d imagine, so I’m going to have a lot of respect for him and everything he’s done. I tend to do better with people I have less respect for. To be honest, I’d rather be fighting Aoki or Kawajiri - somebody other than the guy that got knocked out by someone I already beat in Gomi.”

“But I think I match up very well against Sakurai,” Diaz continued. “I think he’s a little too short to reach me, and I think his ground game needs a lot of work and you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Like I said though, I’m not afraid to fight anybody, that’s not the issue. I’ll fight anyone you got. I’m here to prove I’m pound-for-pound the greatest fighter in the world.”

Diaz’s scheduled fight against Corbbrey in Hawaii will mark the second time that they were slated to fight. The two were set to clash this month but EliteXC’s island event was moved to June, forcing the fight to be re-signed.

The battle between Diaz and Sakurai will be for DREAM’s welterweight title despite “Mach” being upset by David Baron at a Shooto event on May 3rd.

Alvarez, Uno Score Upsets at DREAM

Eddie Alvarez and Caol Uno each pulled off surprising upsets in the second-round of DREAM’s inaugural lightweight grand prix tournament late last night in Japan to solidify their respective spots in the finals later this summer.

The 21,789 that witnessed DREAM’s third effort this year inside the Saitama Super Arena also saw Uno, who fought as a late-entrant into the tourney, overcome a ring-rust filled first round to eventually submit top-ranked Mitsuhiro Ishida with a rear naked choke in the second round.

The first minute of the fight had both fighters content to paw away with short jabs while measuring the distance between one another. Uno picked up the action in the form of leg kicks while Ishida attempted to counter Uno’s kicks with lefts. An errant kick to the groin by Ishida forced Uno to take some time to recover, but the veteran quickly got his bearings back and knocked Ishida down with a crisp right, opening a cut on the bridge of his nose that forced the ringside doctor to stop the clock for a quick check.

Ishida scored a single-leg takedown with about a minute left in the first stanza but Uno was able to reverse position and control his opponent from top position during the closing moments, potentially earning back the round in his favor. After another feeling-out period started the second round, a scramble on the ground saw Uno quickly take Ishida’s back and sink-in the fight-ending choke from behind.

“I know Ishida was eager to fight me,” Uno said after the fight, “He was aggressive and was obviously confident, but I’m the one going home with the win. I’m very happy to be advancing in the tournament.”

Continue reading "Alvarez, Uno Score Upsets at DREAM"

DREAM.3 Quick Results

Here are the complete results from last night’s DREAM.3 event, which took place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

The event featured the second-round of the promotion’s inaugural lightweight grand prix tournament. Tatsuya Kawajiri, Eddie Alvarez, and Caol Uno all moved on. Nick Diaz and Jason “Mayhem” Miller were also victorious in their respective DREAM debuts. A full recap of the event will come later today.

Takeshi Yamazaki def. Shoji Maruyama - Unanimous Decision
Jason Miller def. Katsuyori Shibata - TKO (Strikes)
Melvin Manhoef def. Dae Won Kim - TKO (Strikes)
Daisuke Nakamura def. Bu Kyung Jung - KO (Punch)
Nick Diaz def. Katsuya Inoue - TKO (Corner Stoppage)
Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Luiz Firmino - Unanimous Decision
Eddie Alvarez def. Joachim Hansen - Unanimous Decision
Caol Uno def. Mitsuhiro Ishida - Submission (Rear Naked Choke)

Yamamoto to Return at DREAM in June

Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, widely considered as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in mixed martial arts today, will return to action as part of DREAM’s next scheduled event on June 15th.

DREAM officials confirmed Yamamoto’s participation during last night’s event broadcast.

Yamamoto originally informed the Japanese media last month that he hoped to return to the ring this summer. His contract with Fight Entertainment Group will have him competing inside the confines of DREAM exclusively. The 31-year-old has been with FEG since leaving Shooto in 2003.

While Yamamoto remains unsure of which weight he will fight at, it’s expected that he will take his talents to DREAM’s newly created featherweight division. Yamamoto last stopped World Extreme Cagefighting veteran Rani Yahya with strikes at K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! on New Year’s Eve.

HT: Gryphon Japan

ProElite, DREAM Agree to Partnership

Elite Xtreme Combat parent company ProElite and Fight Entertainment Group’s DREAM yesterday announced a working partnership between the two promotions that will help bridge the once-distant gap between Japanese and American mixed martial arts.

The two sides made the official announcement yesterday at a pre-fight press conference for DREAM.3, which took place late last night in Japan. DREAM officials Keiichi Sasahara and Sadaharu Tanikawa were on hand to discuss details about the agreement along with ProElite’s William Kelly and ICON Sport promoter T. Jay Thompson.

“Last year’s Dynamite USA at the Los Angeles Coliseum was the largest attended mixed martial arts event ever in the USA,” Kelly said at the conference. “ProElite is delighted that we will be building on that by sharing fighters and referees and doing co-promotions in Japan and the US, and potentially the UK and Korea also. Japan is important to ProElite, and we have great US television partners, so we can bring DREAM to the American public.”

It’s expected that ProElite will also attempt to put at least one of the co-promoted shows on network television in the form of CBS.

According to MMA Weekly, ProElite contracted fighters that were mentioned as potential DREAM participants in the future at the press conference included Kimbo Slice, Jake Shields, and Robbie Lawler.

EliteXC fighters Nick Diaz, Jason Miller, and Eddie Alvarez all competed at DREAM’s third show yesterday in Japan, unofficially beginning the sharing of assets between the two organizations.

Diaz-Inoue Finalizes DREAM’s Third Effort

With a scheduled lightweight bout between Nick Diaz and Katsuya Inoue now seemingly set to happen once again, the fight card for DREAM’s second effort in as many weeks is now complete.

The event, which will once again take place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan, will be highlighted by the second-round of the promotion’s inaugural lightweight grand prix tournament. Second-round grand prix matchups set to happen include Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luis Buscape, Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Caol Uno, who will be fighting as a late-entrant into the tourney, and Joachim Hansen vs. EliteXC’s Eddie Alvarez.

Take note that Shinya Aoki, who won an unanimous decision over Gesias Calvancante last week, will face Katsuhiko Nagata in the fourth tournament bout at the organization’s June 15th show, thus why only three grand prix bouts are slated for tomorrow morning/night in Japan.

Jason “Mayhem” Miller, who has not fought since avenging a previous loss to Tim Kennedy in December, will take on K-1 Hero’s veteran Katsuyori Shibata, loser of his last three fights.

Those in North America will be able to see the event live on HDNet starting at 3 AM ET. A replay of the event is slated to air at 4 PM ET on Sunday afternoon for those who don’t feel like staying up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the show from Tokyo.

The full card for the event is as follows:

DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix Bouts:

Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luiz Firmino
Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Caol Uno
Joachim Hansen vs. Eddie Alvarez

Additional Fights:

Jason Miller vs. Katsuyori Shibata
Nick Diaz vs. Katsuya Inoue
Melvin Manhoef vs. Kim Dae Won
Daisuke Nakamura vs. Bukyung Jung
Takeshi Yamazaki vs. Shoji Maruyama

Torn ACL Sidelines Calvancante

Just over a week since suffering his second career loss at the hands of Shinya Aoki, two-time K-1 Hero’s lightweight tournament champion Gesias Calvancante will be required to undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus and ACL and will likely be unable to fight until the end of this year.

Calvancante revealed the extent of his injury to Greg Savage on Sherdog’s ”Savage Dog Show” earlier today.

“The first time I was hurt in my career, it was my hand,” Calvancante said on the show. “That just after I won the (K-1 Hero’s) title so I was like alright, a little vacation. But now I lost so I don’t want that long of a break in between fights. I don’t want to wait 5-6 months without a fight.”

Calvancante’s knee troubles have now extended all the way back to last fall when the re-injuring of his surgically repaired knee during training prevented Calvancante from originally fighting Aoki at Yarennoka! on New Year’s Eve. It’s unknown if the tears were suffered in the same knee once again.

HT: Bloody Elbow

Nick Diaz Back on the DREAM 3 Card (UPDATED)

UPDATED:  Nick Diaz’s trainer, Cesar Gracie, is now reporting that Diaz was given the go ahead to fight this weekend. While the weight cut was going to be an issue, he’s scheduled to board a plane Thursday morning bound for Tokyo.

In the ever changing fight career of Nick Diaz, the fight against Katsuya Inoue that we reported last week, has now been called off at the request of EliteXC.  Apparently, there was once again a miscommunication within EliteXC’s management and president Gary Shaw was never informed of Nick’s participation in the Dream event this coming weekend.  Josh Gross, formerly of Sherdog and now with Sports Illustrated, reports that Shaw just found out about the fight this past weekend and called Diaz’s management Tuesday morning to call off the fight.  Shaw was concerned that the fight within the confines of Dream would jeopardize Diaz’s participation in the EliteXC event scheduled for June 14th.

Gary Shaw phoned Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie early Tuesday with the news that the league was killing the fighter’s appearance on the May 11 Dream card.  Diaz will make his next scheduled contest versus Muhsin Corbbrey at 160 pounds June 14 on the Showtime-televised EliteXC card from Honolulu, Hawaii.

GracieFighter, the website of Diaz’s fight team, confirmed the news.  There’s no telling whether this could hurt relationships between EliteXC and the Dream promotion.  They already are sharing the services of Eddie Alvarez and EliteXC could certainly have used some of the talent in the Dream promotion to sure up its thin roster.

Will the Nick Diaz saga ever end?  Stay tuned…

Nick Diaz to Fight at Dream 3

Dream has posted that Nick Diaz will be competing at their Dream 3 event on May 11, 2008.  His opponent will be longtime Pancrase veteran Katsuya Inoue.  Though Dream 3 is slated to be the second round of Dream’s Lightweight Grand Prix, the Diaz-Inoue fight is not scheduled to be part of that tournament. 

EliteXC’s Nick Diaz has had a career of ups and downs.  It includes championships in the WEC and IFC, as well as a long run in the UFC.  But it has also been marred by controversy, including having his impressive submission victory over Pride’s Lightweight Champion Takanori Gomi overturned when he failed a post fight drug test for marijuana.  Most recently, he was delayed in obtaining a fight license in California due to his medicinal marijuana usage, forcing his fight, on the undercard of the Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le show, to be cancelled two days beforehand.

Diaz is also scheduled to fight just 4 weeks later on EliteXC’s June 14th card in Hawaii.  But as reported this morning, stablemate Jake Shields’ fight for that night has already been postponed.  Between that and EliteXC’s need to fill their second TV show in July on CBS, many have raised suspicions as to whether many of the fights on that card June 14th card will happen.

The Nightmare of Battle is reporting that the winner of Diaz vs. Inoue will face Hayato Sakurai for the Dream Welterweight title in July or September.

CKA: May 2, 2008

Shields vs Fickett Delayed Again

EliteXC has announced that the Welterweight Title fight between Jake Shield and Drew Fickett has been delayed once again.  Originally scheduled for the undercard of the Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le event, the bout was put off due to Shields suffering a back injury.  It had been rescheduled for EliteXC’s June 14th card in Hawaii, but now word comes that Drew Fickett suffered a knee injury. 

Just last week, Shields was quoted as saying he was not sure whether he’d be physically ready by June 14th.  Now this announcement.  Considering the need for EliteXC to start filling their second US network primetime show in late July, this is pretty convenient.  It would look bad for Shields to be the one who is injured again, so maybe EliteXC “encouraged” Fickett to ask for the delay.  It would certainly not be below EliteXC’s Gary Shaw to do something of that nature. 

At this point, the June 14th EliteXC show is still scheduled and will include a lightweight title fight between Yves Edwards and champion KJ Noons, as well as Nick Diaz.

Aoki? JZ? Anyone?

Fresh off his victory over JZ Calcavante in Tokyo on Tuesday at the Dream 2 show, Shinya Aoki’s further participation in the Lightweight Grand Prix is once again clouded.  Before the rematch with JZ ever occurred, Aoki has expressed concerns over whether he would be able to fight in the 2nd round of the GP just two weeks after the JZ rematch.  Now rumor has it that he suffered some facial injuries and will not be allowed to continue whether he wants to or not.  Originally this rumor of the injury was spread by Calcavante’s ATT team.  But it was confirmed by the FEG USA head, Mike Jogan, to USA Today.

Aoki “wants to go on, but it’s up to the doctors,” said Mike Kogan, head of U.S. promotion for Dream’s owner, Fight Entertainment Group. The examination is scheduled for later on Friday — keep in mind that Japan is 13 to 18 hours ahead of North America — so Aoki’s fate could be known several hours from now.

American Top Team made it known that JZ was asked to continue into the next round in place of Aoki but that the fighter and FEG could not come to a financial agreement.