February 8, 2018
By Ryan Porzl
With the end of PRIDE Fighting Championships and it's purchase to then UFC parent company Zuffa in April 2007, it left a huge void as PRIDE was MMA's number one promotion throughout the decade. It also hurt the Japanese Mixed Martial Arts market as they not only lost their top promotion but they lost it via an ugly scandal as they were involved with a yakuza family. With PRIDE now gone, several promotions formed in it's wake in the hopes of filling the void. One promotion was DREAM, a promotion formed by a combination of K-1 owners Fighting Entertainment Group (who even ended K-1 Hero's upon DREAM's formation) and Real Entertainment who were former executives from PRIDE former parent company Dream Stage Entertainment. Formed on February 13, 2008, DREAM was supposed to be one of the next big MMA promotions that hoped to succeed PRIDE. Unfortunately, it never happened and it eventually shut down by 2012 when FEG went bankrupt, ending the promotion after only four years. While DREAM never became a big success, it still made it's mark on the MMA world and now ten years after it began, we can see the contributions it made and why is will go down as an underrated & memorable MMA organization.
During it's four years in business, DREAM was a place that many fighters benefited from as many young unknowns got their big breaks there while vets were reborn or saw their careers enhanced. Gegard Mousasi was a solid prospect and a Cage Warriors champion while having fought in PRIDE but really didn't get noticed. However, that all changed when he went to DREAM as he became one of two to be a two divisional grand prix winner and champion as he was DREAM's Middleweight Champion and then the DREAM Light Heavyweight Champion. It was also in DREAM where Mousasi began beating name opponents including Melvin Manhoef, Denis Kang, Ronaldo Souza, and Mark Hunt. It was his success in DREAM's middleweight division that led him to Strikeforce where he won the Light Heavyweight Title in his debut fight and from there, runs in the UFC & Bellator. Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza was an unknown who mostly fought in his native Brazil until he went to DREAM where he made it to the finals of the 2008 DREAM Middleweight Grand Prix and competed for the middleweight championship twice. Souza eventually went to Strikeforce afterwards where he became Strikeforce Middleweight Champion and then to the UFC where he's had a hugely successful run.
Bibiano Fernandes was a talented up and comer with a 3-2 record with his two losses going to Urijah Faber and Kid Yamamoto. In DREAM, he scored the first big wins of his career against the likes of two divisional DEEP champion Masakazu Imanari, Joachim Hansen, DEEP & Pancrase Bantamweight Champion Yoshiro Maeda, and Hiroyuki Takaya while becoming the second fighter to be a two divisional grand prix winner and champion as he was the first DREAM Featherweight Champion and the only DREAM Bantamweight Champion. Since then, he's dominated ONE's bantamweight division by becoming a ONE Interim Bantamweight & then ONE Bantamweight Champion. Before he was Bellator's season 2 featherweight tournament winner as well as their first two divisional champion, Joe Warren began his MMA career when he debuted in DREAM where competed in the 2008 Featherweight Grand Prix making it all the way to semifinals and scored two huge upsets against Chase Beebe and Kid Yamamoto along the way.
Upon his entrance into DREAM, Eddie Alvarez was only a BodogFIGHT Welterweight Champion but had no big wins under his belt. Despite only fighting four fights, Alvarez had a great run as he scored his first "name" wins by defeating Joachim Hansen and Tatsuya Kawajiri. He also made it to the finals of the 2008 Lightweight Grand Prix and probably could've won it but wasn't able to compete due to an eye injury. His last fight was his first against Shinya Aoki to determine the first WAMMA World Lightweight Champion at Dynamite!! 2008 in front of the biggest crowd of his career which had over 25,000 fans. Despite losing, it raised his profile and from there, he immediately signed with the newly formed Bellator where he had a legendary run as a 2 time Lightweight Champion and the Season 1 Lightweight Tournament Winner which eventually led to the UFC where he won the UFC Lightweight Championship. Marius Zaromskis was a talented striker who, outside of challenging Che Mills for the Cage Rage British Welterweight Championship, hadn't done much, hadn't beat a name fighter, and never won a championship. After going to DREAM, Zaromskis achieved his biggest success by winning the 2008 DREAM Welterweight Grand Prix while being the first and only DREAM Welterweight Champion. He also scored his biggest wins by defeating former DEEP Welterweight Champion Seichi Ikemoto, Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, Jason High, future LEGEND FC Welterweight Champion Ho Bae Myeong, Pancrase Welterweight Title contender Eiji Ishikawa, and an aging Kazushi Sakuraba. Though his post DREAM run wasn't very successful, he did become a Strikeforce Welterweight Title contender by taking on Nick Diaz for the vacant title, and was in Bellator where he was a semifinalist in their Season 8 Welterweight Tournament.
Though they were one and done, both Will Brooks and Joseph Benavidez were discovered via DREAM. Brooks was a 7-0 indy fighter when he appeared in DREAM's last event DREAM 18 on New Year's Eve as a winnable opponent against former Sengoku Lightweight Champion and DREAM Lightweight Title contender Satoru Kitaoka only to score the upset win. The win got his name out there to the point where he was not only signed by Bellator immediately but debuted only a month later which led to a highly successful run as Bellator Lightweight Champion, Interim Lightweight Champion, and Season 9 Lightweight Tournament Winner before going to the UFC. Benavidez appeared at DREAM 5 in 2008 where he was set to face Kid Yamamoto before an injury saw Yamamoto be replaced in only a few days notice and Benavidez instead fought and defeated shooto fighter Junya Kodo. Following that fight, Benavidez signed with WEC and eventually the UFC, becoming a championship contender in both organizations.
Along with launching and discovering many fighters, DREAM also was a place for established fighters to enhance their careers. Shinya Aoki achieved success in Shooto as he was the Shooto Welterweight Champion while having scored two wins over Akira Kikuchi and one over Joachim Hansen while also making appearances in PRIDE. However, his career reached it's peak in DREAM where he became the second & final DREAM Lightweight Champion, the one & only WAMMA World Lightweight Champion, & the 2008 DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix Runner Up while also scoring the biggest wins of his career including JZ Cavalcante, a second win over Hansen, Eddie Alvarez, then Sengoku Lightweight Champion Mizuto Hirota, Caol Uno, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro, former WEC Lightweight Champion Rob McCullough, and then Sengoku Lightweight Champion & future DEEP Lightweight Champion Satoru Kitaoka. It was also in DREAM where Aoki was considered by many to be a top ten lightweight which is impressive giving he never fought in the UFC. Tatsuya Kawajiri was also a success in Shooto as a former Shooto Lightweight Champion while having scored wins over Joachim Hansen and Vitor Ribeiro & was considered the number one lightweight in the world by 2005 but his run in PRIDE wasn't a huge hit as he was bounced from the 2005 Lightweight Grand Prix in the quarterfinals and never competed for the title. Upon going to DREAM, Kawajiri never won a title or grand prix but he did return to title contention and was a semifinalist in the 2008 GP. He also scored wins over Hansen, JZ Cavalcante, two divisional DEEP Champion Kazunori Yokota, Josh Thomson, and DREAM Featherweight Championship contender Kazuyuki Miyata. Like Aoki, Kawajiri got the most exposure of his career while in DREAM, at least prior to his signing with the UFC.
Alistair Overeem was already a light heavyweight prospect in his native Netherlands and in PRIDE but DREAM was mainly the place where he made the successful transition to heavyweight along with his appearances in Strikeforce. While in DREAM, he scored wins over Mark Hunt, James Thompson, Todd Duffee, and an aging Kazuyuki Fujita while becoming the first and only DREAM Heavyweight Champion. Despite not beating a murderer's row, Overeem eventually became one of the top heavyweights that wasn't under contract to the UFC. Joachim Hansen was another former Shooto Welterweight Champion who scored wins against the likes of future Shooto Pacific Rim Lightweight Champion Rumina Sato, Caol Uno, and Masakazu Imanari while giving Takanori Gomi & JZ Cavalcante their first losses. While he did well in PRIDE as he made it to the semifinals of the 2005 Lightweight Grand Prix, he eventually began producing mixed results from late 2005 to 2007. In DREAM, Hansen replaced an injured Eddie Alvarez in the finals of the 2008 Lightweight Grand Prix where he defeated Shinya Aoki to win the Grand Prix and become the inaugural DREAM Lightweight Champion. While he was a replacement, Hansen did return to champion status while also winning a grand prix in the process. He also added some more good wins to his resume by defeating future inaugural ONE Lightweight Champion Kotetsu Boku, Aoki, DREAM Grand Prix Winner Hideo Tokoro, and former Shooto Pacific Rim Welterweight Champion Mitsuhiro Ishida.
DREAM also gave us some of the most memorable moments in MMA history specifically via their year end Dynamite!! shows including light heavyweight Melvin Manhoef's 18 second knockout over super heavyweight Mark Hunt and the long awaited Kazushi Sakuraba/Kiyoshi Tamura dream fight that had been years in the making with both taking place at Dynamite!! 2008. We got Shinya Aoki breaking Mizuto Hirota's arm with his hammerlock while Alistair Overeem nearly killed Kazuyuki Fujita with his uber knee at Dynamite!! 2009. We then got Marius Zaromskis bursting Kazushi Sakuraba's cauliflower ear so bad that Sakuraba's ear nearly fell off as well as the infamous mixed rules fight between Aoki and kickboxer Yuichiro Nagashima which saw the grappler Aoki commit foul after foul during the kickboxing round to avoid fighting only to get knocked out four seconds into the MMA round at Dynamite!! 2010. Along with the careers that were launched or enhanced, DREAM also saw the fall of two lightweight legends in JZ Cavalcante and Kid Yamamoto who both dominated DREAM's predecessor K-1 HERO'S as well as winning Grand Prixes but then began to suffer injuries that led to their declines by the time they began competing in DREAM. We also saw the Lightweight Title fight between Shinya Aoki and Tatsuya Kawajiri at DREAM 15 which was a fight between the two top Japanese fighters at the time. DREAM also had the Super Hulk Openweight Tournament which provided the circus freakshow atmosphere that only JMMA can provide as it featured a combination of elite fighters like Mousasi & Mark Hunt to decent fighters like Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa & Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou to freakshow fighters like Bob Sapp, Jan Nortje, & Hong Man Choi to even former baseball player Jose Canseco and appropriately enough, Minowaman, the smallest man & the one famous for fighting fighters who had big size and weight advantages won it.
Though it didn't last long, DREAM did also provide MMA fans with an alternative especially those who yearned for Japanese Mixed Martial Arts on a national scale. While the rules were somewhat different (soccer kicks weren't allowed) as were the round length (three five minute rounds instead of round one being ten and the last being five), there still was plenty to remind you of PRIDE as the rest of the rules were the same (knees to grounded opponents and kicking an opponent when both fighters were down were legal but elbows were not) and the judging criteria was the same (fights judged in their entirety instead of round by round and judges looking for who comes closer to finishing and dealing the most damage). The larger than life shows were there with amazing opening ceremonies, great sets, good entrances, and epic theme song (definitely one of the greatest songs in MMA history) that gets your blood pumping for the show ahead. DREAM also continued the Japanese tradition of big events on New Year's Eve specifically the Dynamite events that originally began with K-1. It also came at a good time for fans of JMMA as a lot of the top MMA promotions were now American like UFC, EliteXC, Strikeforce, and Bellator who were all required to use Unified Rules of MMA and fought in cages instead of rings so DREAM was a nice alternative for fans who preferred the Japanese way and it was different.
In the end, DREAM will never go down in Mixed Martial Arts history the same way the UFC & PRIDE will and it ultimately failed in the grand scheme of things as it never filled the void left in the wake of PRIDE's demise but it was still a solid promotion that should be remembered fondly for launching or enhancing many great careers, providing great fights, and memorable moments. With the ten year anniversary approaching, it's nice to look back at one of MMA's more underrated promotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment