DREAM 4 Fight Order: Aoki Blacklisted?

by AnonymousA on Jun 13, 2008 12:59 PM EDT Comment 4 comments

The fight order for DREAM 4 was finalized today. Not surprisingly Sakuraba vs. Manhoef will headline the event. However, there is one surprise in the order, see if you can catch it:

OLYMPIA DREAM.4 Middleweight GP 2008 2nd Round
Date: June 15th, 2008
Place: Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan

Middleweight GP 2nd Round Fights:
8. Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Melvin Manhoef
7. Ronaldo Jacare vs. Jason Miller
6. Kin Taiei vs. Zelg Galesic
5. Yoon Dong Sik vs. Gegard Mousasi

Featherweight Fight:
4. Hideo Tokoro vs. Darren Uyenoyama

Heavyweight Fights:
3. Gadzhiev Alavutdin vs. Ralek Gracie
2. Alistair Overeem vs. Lee Tae Hyun

Lightweight GP 2nd Round Fight:
1. Shinya Aoki vs. Katsuhiko Nagata

Shinya Aoki again slotted into the opening match?

It isn't a far stretch of the imagination to believe that the DREAM executives were less than pleased with the main event of their inaugural event being ruled a No Contest. It was also easy to assume that Aoki/Calvan lead off DREAM.2 in order to display an eagerness to finally have their trilogy come to a conclusion, and not necessarily to defame two of their top draws with undercard status.

Now, for the second straight time, Aoki is again placed at the very bottom of the undercard.

Why isn't Aoki billed fourth? Surely it would make sense to place a tournament fight 4th, before the middleweight bouts took place. Is this another attempt to eagerly wrap up a earlier round of the Lightweight GP? Or, perhaps, is there a more nefarious motive, with the lingering displeasure of DREAM.1 still in the minds of DREAM's upper brass?

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Comments

Do you honestly believe that that NC was mostly Aoki’s fault? If I remember correctly it was JZ who threw illegal elbows to the back of Aoki’s neck.

Maybe the DREAM execs know something about audience psychology that we don’t.

by Flying Gogoplata on Jun 13, 2008 8:17 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No, I don’t believe it was Aoki’s fault at all. I never said that.

I’m saying Aoki’s opening status, coupled with DREAM’s offer to J.Z. to replace Aoki after DREAM.2, makes me believe that the K-1 HERO’s half of DREAM is less than pleased with Aoki and could COULD be upset with Aoki.

by AnonymousA on Jun 14, 2008 1:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It still doesn’t make much sense. Why would the FEG guys put a big draw like Aoki on the bottom just because of some [speculative] grudge they have against him? I think your “eagerly wrap up” reasoning is far more reasonable than some completely speculative devious FEG conspiracy.

by Flying Gogoplata on Jun 14, 2008 4:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I agree with you. But it isn’t exactly unprovoked speculation. Wouldn’t you want one of your top guys a little farther up the card, and not having to deal with the psychological aspects of opening a card? You know Aoki is susceptible to placement jitters, as he didn’t do well headlining Yarenoka! or DREAM.1.

by AnonymousA on Jun 15, 2008 12:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs