Dream Bantamweight Grand Prix Participants Unveiled

Dream will be staging the first round the World Bantamweight Grand Prix at Dream 17 on September 23rd. It was already known that the three top finishers from the recent Japanese BWGP made it into the World GP, and Dream had also previously confirmed that Rodolfo Marques and Bibiano Fernandes were participating. Today, Dream announced the final three contestants and the opening round matchups. They also apparently removed the third place finisher from the Japan GP, Kenji Osawa, and replaced him with  the man he narrowly defeated in the third-place fight, Takafumi Otsuka.

The final three contestants announced were WEC veteran Antonio Banuelos, former Dream grand prix contestant Abel Cullum, and BE's # 4 bantamweight prospect Yusup Saadulaev.

Here are the first round matchups:

Antonio Banuelos vs. Hideo Tokoro
Bibiano Fernandes vs. Takafumi Otsuka
Masakazu Imanari vs. Abel Cullum
Rodolfo Marques vs. Yusup Saadulaev

The rest of the card includes Tatsuya Kawajiri's first foray into the featherweight division when he takes on Joachim Hansen, Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki facing "Razor" Rob McCullough, Willamy Friere vs. Satoru Kitaoka, and "Lion" Takeshi Inoue vs. Caol Uno.

More SBN coverage of Dream 17