Uno, Alverez victorious at DREAM.3

Three of the four semifinalists are now set for the DREAM Lightweight GP following an exceptionally entertaining night of fights.  DREAM.3 was the most impressive effort to date in the promotion’s young history with solid bouts top to bottom as well as the best attended with over 22,000 fans witnessing the proceedings at the Saitama Super Arena outside of Tokyo.  The three featured matchups of the evening were the quarterfinals for the Lightweight GP tournament and saw Caol Uno, Eddie Alverez and Tatsuya Kawajiri advance.  They’ll be joined by the winner of next month’s Shinya Aoki/Katsuhiko Nagata contest when the tournament resumes on July 21^st at Osaka’s Osaka-jo Hall.

Eddie Alverez prevailed in a great fight with former Shooto lightweight champion Joachim Hansen.  Alverez looked particularly sharp in his striking game, which allowed him to dominate the first round.  He knocked Hansen down a couple of times and at one point looked to be on the verge of a stoppage as the round drew to a close.  The double tough Hansen would take over early in the 2^nd round and put on a submission clinic, throwing a variety of chokes, arm bars and leglocks at his American opponent who had a counter or escape for everything.  At the final bell the two warriors embraced and slumped to the mat together in a moving display of mutual respect. Alverez’s precise punching in the first carried the day, however, earning him a unanimous decision victory.  This was easily the best fight of the night and an early candidate for ‘fight of the year’ consideration.

Caol Uno’s matchup against Mitsuhiro Ishida may not have been as epic, but his victory over the substantially favored opponent dubbed “The Endless Warrior� for his toughness and endurance was almost shocking in its decisiveness.  The fight started with a good deal of acrimony including an intense staredown and a refusal to shake hands.  Uno’s sharp punching skills dominated early before he caught an inadvertent low kick which stopped the action temporarily.  After recovering, he continued to pepper Ishida with power punches including an upper cut that severely bloodied and perhaps broke Ishida’s nose.  It looked nasty, but passed the scrutiny of the ringside physician and the fight continued.

The second round began with much more balanced activity as the two fighters went at it first throwing punches and then on the ground trading takedowns and submissions.  The end came when Uno escaped an Ishida kimura attempt and then quickly took his opponent’s back.  Uno locked in a tight rear naked choke that forced his opponent to tap despite him not having his legs “hooked� in.  The loss was only the 4^th of Ishida’s career and just the second by way of stoppage, the first coming by TKO to one of the best “pound for pound� fighters in the world in Takanori Gomi.

In the evening’s other lightweight GP tournament match, Tatsuya Kawajiri used his takedown defense and ground and pound offense to earn a workmanlike decision over Brazilian Top Team member Luiz “Buscape� Firmino.  Kawajiri repeatedly stuffed Buscape’s takedown attempts and on the occasions where he did meet the canvas managed to gain a reversal and continue his “ground and pound� attack.  While the fight paled to the other tournament matchups in terms of drama, intensity and technique it was a decisive win for the Japanese veteran of PRIDE and Shooto.  While perhaps not as charismatic and entertaining as the other remaining LWGP contestants his fighting style is made to order for a tournament of this type.  In many ways he’s similar to UFC competitor Sean Sherk in that while he may not have the martial arts background to equal his opponents he’s able to win with conditioning, toughness and suffocating ground and pound.

Aside from the Lightweight GP bouts the other significant takeaway from the night was a solidly impressive performance by the enigmatic Nick Diaz in a stoppage victory over Katsuya Inoue.  This match wasn’t announced until last weekend and in the intervening 7 days was “on� and “off� several times due to political machinations between EliteXC and DREAM, followed by concern on Diaz’s part that he wouldn’t be able to make weight.  In a bout that was essentially all standup punching, Diaz dominated from the opening bell.  A professional level boxer, Diaz used all the tools of “the sweet science� to bewilder Inoue establishing a solid jab and mixing up combinations to the head and body.  Though Inoue was able to get off some effective counterstrikes on a few occasions, he was no match in the punching exchanges overall.  Despite being used for target practice during most of the 2^nd round the rugged Inoue never went down and his corner was eventually forced to “throw in the towel� to save their fighter from a further beating.

The brutally talented but often troubled and controversial Diaz needed an impressive performance in this fight and he more than delivered.  Following run-ins with the athletic commissions in California and Nevada due to his marijuana use (both clinical and recreational) and an ugly showing following a stoppage loss due to a cut where he made obscene gestures to both the ringside physician and the fans on his way out of the ring, Diaz showed nothing but skill during the bout and class before and after.  He was gracious in his postfight comments to the fans and was greeted enthusiastically by them on his way out of the arena, slapping hands and exchanging hugs.  With all of the ups and downs Diaz has already experienced in his career its easy to forget that he’s only 24 years old.  Hopefully his performance signals a renewed focus on his profession as when his “head is in the game� there’s few fighters in the sport as consistently exciting to watch.  In the postfight press conference Diaz indicated that he’d eventually like to fight lightweight contender Shinya Aoki in what could be a “dream matchup� (no pun intended) shout it materialize. 

In other action, Korean judoka Dae Won Kim dominated the entire way keeping Dutch kickboxer Melvin Manhoef off balance with a mixture of throws and a surprisingly effective punching game.  Unfortunately, Kim ended up on the wrong end of a KO loss as he was caught with a couple of brutal knees midway through the first round and knocked out cold.  Ironically, it was the first significant offense of the fight by Manhoef who looked listless throughout.  The self proclaimed “monkey king� and one of the more interesting ‘characters’ in the sport, Jason “Mayhem� Miller dominated Katsuyori Shibata in a completely one sided affair.  Even Miller’s frequently flamboyant ring entrances—think “Prince� Nassem Hamed with more humor and less Broadway pomp—was restrained with only some brief breakdancing. 

A very knowledgeable boxing expert once made the profound observation to me that you shouldn’t judge a fighter by his record alone.  Olympic Silver Medalist and former World Cup Judo champion Bu Kyung Jung is a perfect example of this—he lost by 2^nd round KO to Daisuke Nakamura to drop his record to 0-3 but was an especially game competitor throughout.  His judo skills and general toughness gave his Japanese foe fits during the first frame as they fought to a standstill.  In the 2^nd, Nakamura landed a perfectly placed right cross to “the button� for the KO win.  The punch was so perfectly placed and thrown that it would have knocked out anyone.  Both of Kim‘s previous two losses were by decision to two of the sport’s elite—Mitsuhiro Ishida and Shinya Aoki.  The fact that he fought the submission expert Aoki in his first professional MMA bout and took him the distance is borderline unfathomable.

DREAM.3 was the first of the promotion’s events to be televised live to the US on HDNet and for American fans that provided perhaps the only negative of the evening.  HDNet’s production was awful and the commentary ranged from tedious to embarrassing.  Kenny Rice was passable, though somewhat lackluster with his monotone delivery.  Bas Rutten—whom I respect as a fighter and trainer and is by all accounts a great guy—was nothing short of disastrous on commentary.  As the card progressed he seem more interested in making stereotypical ethnic jokes, singing and humming along to the ring entrance music and doing horrible impressions of Bruce Lee and Elvis than he did in calling the action.  I’m sure Rutten’s a riot if you’re out drinking beer with him but without a strong presence on play by play to “rein him in� his commentary quickly took on the tone of “Open Mic Night� at “The Improv�.  HDNet’s overall production quality was arguably the worst by a major promotion in the history of the sport.  On a show with such high quality fights this sort of pitiful effort is inexcusable and an insult to the sport and the fighters who compete in it.

Despite the shabby production on the US HDNet broadcast, DREAM.3 was an unqualified success and delivered the sort of dramatic highlights in the midst of wall to wall quality fighting that characterized PRIDE at its best.  If the promotion can sustain this sort of quality in terms of their product and effectively leverage their brand new partnership with EliteXC they could be on the verge of emerging from the shadow of their PRIDE forbearers.  All in all a must see event if you didn’t catch it live, particularly the Alverez/Hansen bout which was simply fighting at its highest level.