Dream 16 Parting Shots

Another day, another five-hour Dream special. One of the best parts about these Japanese MMA marathons that HDNet airs in the U.S. is that you’re always going to have some good action nestled in there somewhere. On this particular installment of Dream, a couple of less enthusiastic performances (cough Shinya Aoki cough) were buoyed by great performances elsewhere, and the usual antics from our esteemed presenters, Michael Schiavello and Frank Trigg.

Actually, watching the whole thing in the wee hours of the night helped make their mock fight, luchadore masks and banter that much more palatable. Anyway, let’s get on with the show.

What the–?

Really, though, that’s the best place to begin. There is something slightly surreal about watching Japanese MMA shows, with all of their eccentricity, when you’re already sleep-deprived. Some of my favorite parts of the show (luchadore masks notwithstanding) would include:

–The use of Prince’s “Sexy MF” in Michihiro Omigawa’s pre-fight hype video.

–Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s dance routine as he made his way to the ring to face his idol.

–Sakuraba’s homage to a Japanese cartoon, as well as all the night’s samurai drummer appearances.

Great stuff. It makes you hope Dream has what it takes to keep on truckin’, doesn’t it?

But then again, there’s that…

Not all of Dream’s quirks are as endearing as “Crazy Screaming Lady” or samurai drummers, though. Take the yellow cards, for example. We heard Frank Trigg address the suspicions that Dream’s yellow cards (and Pride’s yellow cards, before) were given a bit more freely to foreigners. Trigg even jokingly called it a tax.

Then, what happens in the Aoki-Aurelio fight? Aoki, who spent the majority of the fight on top of Aurelio, doing not much of anything, gets the fight stood up from inactivity. The ref stands up the fighters, and gives a yellow card to…Aurelio. Nothing for Aoki.

So let me get this straight: Aoki is mounted on Aurelio and actually has Aurelio’s legs triangled with his own so he can’t move, and Aurelio is supposed to somehow push the action from that position? Furthermore, Aurelio is doing what he can, throwing punches when possible, and Aoki gets stood up from the mount for inactivity, but there’s no punishment for Aoki himself?

The yellow card may sometimes serve its purpose, but it’s the alternative purchase that has always bothered me: ripping off fighters of sizable portions of their hard-earned money for no good reason. Aoki should have been given the yellow card, if anything, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen, didn’t we?

Aoki doesn’t bring the goods

Speaking of Aoki, I can’t be the only person who was disappointed with his performance. I have to give credit where credit is due: Aoki showed great ability to pass Aurelio’s guard, and the technique of triangling his opponent’s legs while in the mount so that he can’t escape was certainly pretty cool to see (for the first minute or two, anyway).

However, this seems to be a theme nowadays when Aoki faces another competent grappler: he plays a conservative game and just doesn’t really bring the goods. Remember against Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro, where we all hoped for a great fight between two good grapplers and instead got Aoki out-pointing Ribeiro from a standing position? Hey, Aoki won the fight against Aurelio, so I guess you can’t fault him. However, maybe Aoki should keep his criticisms of wrestlers who simply stall their way to wins to himself in the future, since he joined their ranks, if only for a night.

What can we take from Mayhem’s win over Sakuraba?

Early in the night, Schiavello and Trigg astutely wondered whether Miller could really punch his idol in the face, and when Miller forced Sakuraba to the mat, we got the answer loud and clear.

Miller threw some brutally stiff punches right into Sakuraba’s mush, which allowed him to soften up the Japanese legend enough to sink in an arm triangle for the submission. What can we really take away from such a victory, though?

I don’t want to disrespect Miller, as I’m a fan of his and think he’s a very talented fighter. It must have been a big night for Miller to not only beat a fighter he has always looked up to, but to submit him. Submitting Sakuraba is no small task, after all. However, there really isn’t a whole lot we can take from this in terms of what it means for Miller’s career. Who really thought that Sakuraba would win this fight? He hasn’t looked like himself since the old Pride days, right?

The only thing we can truly take away from this fight is that Sakuraba needs to retire. He won’t, as he says he wants to keep competing for a few more years, but he can’t keep up with top competition anymore, and watching him have competitive contests with middling fighters is not exactly a great proposition. I wouldn’t even call the fight a “passing of the torch” moment, because generally passing the torch happens when the passer still has something left to give, and the passee is simply better. Hughes-St. Pierre II was a passing of the torch. In the case of Sakuraba, he had stumbled and dropped the torch long ago, and it’s not his to pass.

Quick Shots

–You’ve got to feel for Hideo Tokoro. The poor guy gets kicked in the balls twice by Joachim Hansen, and continues to fight at the peril of his pebbles, only to be submitted within a couple of minutes. Talk about a bad night. It’s good to see Hansen get back into the “W” column, though.

–If we couldn’t take much away from Mayhem-Sakuraba, we can take even less away from Satoshi Ishii’s win over Ikuhisa Minowa. Minowa was simply swamped by the former Olympic judo gold medalist, who overwhelmed him and controlled him from the opening bell. It appeared as if Ishii was 100 pounds heavier than Minowa at times, though the actual discrepancy was much less. Often, it was like watching a grizzly bear maul Justin Bieber, though without the satisfaction.

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Tags: DREAM, Dream 16, Frank Trigg, Hideo Tokoro, Ikuhisa Minowa, Jason "Mayhem" Miller, Joachim Hansen, Kazushi Sakuraba, Marcus Aurelio, Michael Schiavello, Michihiro Omigawa, Satoshi Ishii, Shinya Aoki