Jims Clockwork Blog: Dream 5 Lightweight Grand Prix Finals thoughts

I've been a big fan of Japanese MMA ever since I could get my hands on some early Pancrase, Japan Vale Tudo, Rings KOK and Shooto tapes. It's the event atmosphere, the knowledgeable crowd who appreciates all aspects of MMA, fighting in the ring, leglocks, tournaments, good fighters and crazy always excited announcers - all those things combined made Japanese MMA very entertaining. I mean if you watched any of the yearly "Best of Shooto" tapes in the late 1990s and compared it to any of the other MMA around the world at the time you'd see how incredible the fights were.

This weekend were the Finals of the Dream Lightweight Grand Prix that started a few months back with first round of the tournament. I was really excited about that card because of several late Pride Bushido stars were to participate. Unfortunately, as it often happens, even the best cards on paper do not always turn out that way. The event was so so and several fighters I was looking out for like Joachim Hansen and Hideo Tokoro were pretty flat. Especially Hansen, who has pulled some amazing grappling moves during his fights, like helicopter armbar, and has had some amazing KO victories as well. I don't know if they layoff affected him or what, but he looked lethargic against a lesser opponent and even though he still finished the fight with a rear naked choke after flipping his opponent over him from all fours right into the back mount he looked like a shadow of his former energetic self. Anyways...onto the fights.

Daisuke Nakamura vs. Andy Ologun - Classic fight between grappler vs striker, as classic as that type of fight can get as Nakamura was even wearing old style Rings shinpad boots, which I thought was awesome. Ologun is brother of Bobby Ologun, who's a some type of comedian-turned-fighter in Japan. It was a fun short fight with Nakamura trying for a kneebar after getting knocked off his feet and finishing the fight with a slick flying armbar!

Joachim Hansen vs. Kultar Gill - Kultar Gill aka Black Mamba is quick striker with some great takedown defence who's given his many mostly grappling opponents hell win or lose. He beat Tokoro twice giving him a beating while escaping numerous submission attempts. To be honest I was a little worried for Hansen because of his last lethargic performance and you have to be very alert fighting Black Mamba. Hansen did good though, he kept pressure on Gill with takedowns so much so that Gill resorted to trying to take Hansen down. Hansen countered with a Kimura and then switched it to an armbar from the bottom for the submission. Good win for Hansen.

Joseph Benavidez vs. Junya Kudo - haven't heard about either fighter before, but Benavidez had Uriah Faber in his corner which only meant that he is from a tough camp and it's going to be a good fight. Benavidez's fighting style resembled Faber's, he was quick with his takedowns, did an awesome slam and looked to have powerful punches. Kudo did catch Benavidez with a few punches and kept up with him for a bit, but they didn't seem to affect Benavidez much. Benavidez pulled off a nice guillotine choke from the mount after quickly turning Kudo over his side from all fours. I'll be looking out for Benavidez now, hopefully he'll get a shot in WEC on Versus soon.

Hideo Tokoro vs. Takeshi Yamazaki - Hideo Tokoro's claim to fame was practically beating the Royce Gracie who outweight him by more than 30lb or so. Tokoro was given a chance of a life time and took full advantage of the opportunity and fought like a little mad man. He's always exciting and has a very slick ground game. Back to this fight with Yamazaki. Great fight with back and forth action. Tokoro actually ended up out striking Yamazaki and had a few kimura attempts. Yamazaki did great at neutralizing Tokoro's great guard and passing it on several occasions. Tokoro took a deserved decision win.

Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. Motoki Miyazawa - Hironaka is a pretty tough guy with wins over Ryan Schultz, Nick Diaz and Renato Verissimo and a decision loss to Jon Fitch. Hironaka and Miyazawa tried to grapple for a bit with Hironaka getting a takedown and Miyazawa attempting to play rubber guard for a bit but quickly gave up. They worked their way back to standing and turned it into a striking match with Hironaka getting better and better as they went on till he finished it with flurry for a TKO from a cut. Decent fight.

Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Katsuyori Shibata - I think Akiyama was the very first MMA fighter entrance to an opera piece and it actually pretty good. Akiyama is a judoka who's been involved in some controversy with oiling up in a fight with Kazushi Sakuraba and generallyn know to be an a$$hole. He's had some good wins over Dennis Kang and Melvin Manhoef recently. For this fight though he was fighting a tomato can of sort in Shibata, may be cause he needed to recover after a vicious KO courtecy of Kazuo Misaki in his last fight. He was having a hard time with Shibata, who was keeping distance and striking from the outside. Akiyama finally cornered Shibata and threw a huge high kick that missed but gave him an opportunity to tie up and do a sweet judo sweep to side mount. He moved to mount and used his gi to choke Shibata completely out with a front choke. Pretty typical Judo.

Caol Uno vs. Shinya Aoki - Both are exciting fighters. Uno with a good mix of stand up, ground and tenacity (dig up his classic fight with Joachim Hansen!) and Aoki with his rare submission skills, he's the only one so far to pull of a go-go plata from the mount! I was very excited to see the fight even though I know that when two really good guys fight it may not be too exciting. It wasn't the most faced paced fight, but it was great. In round 1 Aoki had a good heelhook attempt, then he took Uno's back and set up Uno to roll out straight in a tight triangle, then an armbar. As great as Aoki was moving from a submission to a submission, Uno was right there with him escaping from the jaws of defeat. Round 2 started off with Aoki taking Uno down, passsing his guard and taking his back again. Uno eventually worked his way out into Aoki's rubber guard to finish the round and the fight. Great round work and control by Aoki, he moved to the finals of the tournament.

Eddie Alvarez vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri - Kawajiri a long time top lightweight and generally exciting fighter with strong wrestling and powerful striking from Shooto and Pride Bushido days. He beat Black Mamba and Luis Fermino to get to the semi finals of this tournament to face Alvarez. I haven't really seen Alvarez fight till the begining of this tournament and he really impressed me with his win over Andre Dida and then beating Joachim Hansen. This match just had to be good I thought. What a great fight it turned out! Both guys were really going for it with striking. Alvarez caught kawajiri with a great flurry and almost had him out. Kawajiri recovered and knocked Alvarez down and mounted him. Alvarez escaped to standing and they were both slugging it out out with both of them getting knocked down and still punching. Alvarez kept pushing forward and knocked Kawajiri down yet again and referee made him finish Kawajiri off on the ground. This wasn't the kind of fight to engage in as part of the tournament though. Alvarez had a big mouse with a cut under his right eye to go into the final against Aoki.

Mark Hunt vs. Alistair Overeem - Meaningless fight? Yes. Are Mark Hunt and Alistair Overeem fun to watch? Yes. Thats another thing Japanse MMA always offered over MMA - can't be serious all the time so once in a while it's ok to put on fight purely cause they'd be fun to watch! Hunt landed a few hard shots on Overeem to start off, then he kinda just pushed Overeem down and ...gasp.. he proceeded to intelligently pass Overeems guard. Good for you Mark Hunt! Hunt passed Overeem's guard into side mount but Overeem managed to lock in an Americana from the bottom, which he proceeded to crank like crazy and working in his legs as if he was going to go for an armbar on the other arm. He turned Hunt over and submitted him with a kimura from the guard. I wish it was longer, but it was fun while it lasted.

Tournament Final: Shinya Aoki vs Joachim Hansen - Turns out Eddie Alvarez couldn't continue with one eye shut, so Joachim stepped in as a winner of the alternate fight earlier. Hansen had a shorter earlier fight, but Aoki had a go-go plata submission win over Hansen only 2 years ago. Aoki took a charging Hansen down and kinda took his time working for position. Hansen proceeded to literally pester Aoki with a lot of punches from the bottom and making him move. Aoke is forced to stand up and Hansen accidentaly, though lightly, kick Aoki in the groin. To Aoki's credit he takes a very short break and they restard. Hansen throws wild puches, they scramble and Aoki plays rubber guard. Hansen gets out to land some hard punches form the top. He works to get out, stands up and lands a HUGE punch falling down and finishes and stunned Aoki. Hansen in the tournament winner.

Hansen said he want's to fight Alvarez next, but for me I think Alvarez should fight Aoki to resolve the real winner of the tournament.

MMA Tournaments are so exciting to follow and Japanese MMA has always provided us with some amazing events based on the tournaments. While Dream's tournament wasn't the best ever, it was still a decent tournament with excitement and unpredictability that only tournaments can provide. MMA Fighters that won tournaments or had to fight several times in one night always stand out for me as fighters who are just a little bit tougher than others. Vovchanchyn, Fedor, Noguiera, Henderson, Silva, Shogun, CroCop, Gomi are men's men.