DREAM Featherweight Grand Prix Semifinals, Reserve Bout Made Official

Though they were made known during HDNet's broadcast of DREAM.10, DREAM officially announced the pairings for the semifinals of its 2009 Featherweight Grand Prix at a press conference in Tokyo today. Both the semis and finals will take place at DREAM.11 on October 6th in Yokohama Arena.

As expected, "Streetfight Bancho" Hiroyuki Takaya (11-6-1 / Takaya Gundan) will clash with Hideo Tokoro (22-16-1 / Team ZST) in a bout which ensures that one Japanese fighter will make the finals. Both fighters have had their battles already in the tournament. After destroying Yoon Dong Sik student Jong Man Kim back at DREAM.7, Takaya came out on top of a shootout with Yoshiro Maeda at DREAM.9. Tokoro was eliminated in the first round of the tournament by Daiki Hata, but replaced the injured "DJ.taiki" against Abel Cullum and won his way back into the bracket with a fantastic standing rear-naked choke.

The other semifinal match will feature Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Bibiano Fernandes (5-2 / Revolution Fight Team) against Greco-Roman wrestling convert Joe Warren (2-0 / Team Quest), owner of perhaps the year's biggest upset with his May split-decisioning of Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto.

Surprisingly, FEG poster boy "Kid" won't be featured in the tournament's reserve bout that evening. Instead, the aforementioned Daiki "DJ.taiki" Hata (11-5-3 / freelance) will make his return against reinvented featherweight Kazuyuki Miyata (7-7 / Brave), who's reeled off two DEEP wins since April after taking a year hiatius to focus on training and his own Brave gym.

UPDATED at 11:08 AM

A couple more details from the press conference:

- Event Producer Keiichi Sasahara said that this will be an "all-star show" - "Kid," Tatsuya Kawajiri and Kazushi Sakuraba are all candidates for single fights. However, Sasahara thinks Yamamoto needs a fight to reacclimate himself after his KO loss at K-1 MAX earlier this month, and Sakuraba's return could be pushed back to DREAM.12. An announcement will be made shortly.

- Tokoro says he'll train with boxing champ Daisuke Naito in preparation for Takaya, who in turn will be working on his wrestling/grappling from now until the fight comes.

- Miyata says he feels he has the best takedowns in all of MMA, including the UFC, and he'd like to test himself agaianst Joe Warren.

Photo via Sportsnavi