It's Official: Shinya Aoki vs. "Mach" Sakurai in DREAM WWGP Opening Round
by Chris Nelson on Mar 19, 2009 3:50 AM EDT
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photo via Sportsnavi
DREAM Event Producer Keiichi Sasahara held a press conference on Thursday and confirmed the first bout for the promotion's upcoming Welterweight Grand Prix: a rematch between the tournaments two biggest stars, Shinya Aoki and Hayato "Mach" Sakurai. Sakurai narrowly outpointed a game-but-unknown Aoki in an August 2005 Shooto bout. (Video in the extended entry.) Sasahara said that the identities of the remaining four WWGP participants will be revealed next week, and that three of the four will be foreigners. This lends some credence to the rumored participation of Andre Galvao, Marcello Garcia and John Alessio.
OLYMPIA DREAM.8 Welterweight GP 2009 1st Round
April 5, 2009 // Nippon Gaishi Hall // Nagoya, JapanZelg Galešić (9-4) vs. Andrews Nakahara (1-1)
Ikuhisa Minowa (41-29-8) vs. Katsuyori Shibata (2-6-1)
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza (10-2) vs. TBAWelterweight GP Bout
Shinya Aoki (20-3) vs. Hayato "Mach" Sakurai (34-8-2)Featherweight GP Bout
Hideo Tokoro (21-15-1) vs. Daiki "DJ.taiki" Hata (10-5-3)Welterweight GP Participants
Seichi Ikemoto (18-14-5)
Yuya Shirai (15-7)
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Kills some of the potential drama of them meeting later in the year, but GPs have a way of fucking all that up, so I’ll take it. I hope they can find Jacare a good opponent.
by Derek Suboticki on Mar 19, 2009 3:59 AM EDT reply actions
possibly Filho that is very much up in the air though. Arona is talking about going back to MMA sooner rather than later also since ADCC was put on indefinate hold. Of course he’s way too big for 185 but don’t be surprised to see him turn up on an event in the very near term. He’s been training with Filho and wants to get paid.
Gimme 1 round!
by ItBurnzWhenIP on Mar 19, 2009 4:17 AM EDT up reply actions
Seems to be a little bit of forced perspective going on there, with Aoki being closer to the camera. But Aoki is still tall, yeah.
Contributor Emeritus - BloodyElbow.com
by Chris Nelson on Mar 19, 2009 11:54 AM EDT up reply actions
Wow you mean my speculating about Marcelo Garcia might have been right? OMG who would have thought. Wait till they announce Kharitonov vs I’m guessing Hunto
Gimme 1 round!
Oops
And Kawajiri vs JZ
Just FTR… When the hell are we gonna hear something more concrete about Hellboy’s condition and when he’ll be able to fight again?
Gimme 1 round!
by ItBurnzWhenIP on Mar 19, 2009 4:22 AM EDT up reply actions
Beginning of February Sherdog posted an update. He was rolling before his fight fight JZ, had an awkward moment, hit his head and got a concussion. He’s fine now, and they said they were just negotiating when his first title defense would be (and there were undertones that the negotiations were somewhat difficult).
Have Jacare fight Jorge Santiago. I’m sure they can swoon him over to Japan for a quick fight.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill
I have a strange inkling
That Sengoku’s MW champion will not be fighting against Jacare lol
Gimme 1 round!
by ItBurnzWhenIP on Mar 19, 2009 4:18 AM EDT up reply actions
Wouldn’t it be … well I guess hilarious is the wrong word… but awesome, if Parisyan decided to cut and run on his suspension and entered this thing.
Don’t even bother starting to type why this won’t happen, I know, I’m just daydreaming.
The only thing that frustrates me about this fight is that I’ve wanting to see just how good Mach is right now. Now if he goes out and gets subbed by Aoki it isn’t really going to show anything. I wanted to see what he is like now against consistently good welterweight opponents.
I thought this same thing, but I also think Mach sounds legitimately ticked off that Aoki is moving to welterweight and this is a fight that Mach can really get up for.
Plus, if Mach does lose in the first round, we might actually get to see him face consistent WWs more often – when they ship him over to Strikeforce.
Contributor Emeritus - BloodyElbow.com
by Chris Nelson on Mar 19, 2009 5:52 PM EDT up reply actions
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