At a press conference on Monday in Tokyo, Japan five more bouts were added to the upcoming New Year’s Eve “Dynamite!! Power of Courage 2010″ event, which includes a DREAM welterweight title bout between champ Marius Žaromskis and Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba.
Making the announcements were FEG President Sadaharu Tanigawa, DREAM Executive Producer Keiichi Sasahara and the newly announced Dynamite!! Executive Producer Antonio Inoki. Inoki is a big name in professional wrestling and by bringing him on board should help to bring more attention to an event that is badly in need of fan interest.
Also made official for the event was the special rules bout (MMA/K-1 mix) between DREAM lightweight champ Shinya Aoki vs. Yuichiro “Jienotsu’ Nagashima, the lightweight match featuring Josh Thomson vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri, a featherweight bout between Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Cao Uno who will drop to 145 lbs for the first time, and a kickboxing match between lightweights Tetsuya Yamato vs. Akiyo “Wicky” Nishiura.
There are still a few rumored bouts out there that could really boost the events status if they happen.
It had been reported that K-1 legend Jérôme Le Banner would face Tatsuya Mizuno under an MMA rules bout but now there is some doubt if the fight will happen or if he’ll even face Mizuno. Ikusa.fr (via NightmateofBattle.com) is reporting that Le Banner has a choice between Mizuno or Judo Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii at the event.
Meanwhile Zach Arnold at the FightOpinion.com, has some interesting gossip for the event. He hints that fans might expect to see Josh Barnett on the card against Alistair Overeem, who said he wants to fight for the DREAM heavyweight title at the event. With Barnett’s licensing in the States still up in the air, it would give him a chance to get back into the cage in a meaningful fight.
For Žaromskis this will be his first DREAM title defense since winning the title in July 2009. Since then he’s gone 1-2-1 in his last four, earning a “No Contest” against Waachiim Spiritwolf after accidentally poking him in the eye last month at a Strikeforce Challengers 12 event. Žaromskis hasn’t done well under the Strikeforce banner losing to Evangelista Santos in June and to Nick Diaz in a welterweight title bout last January.
The 41 year old Sakuraba isn’t being thrown in to a title fight because he’s been winning fights, going 2-4 in his last six and is on a two fight losing skid at this time, but is most likely being given the title shot to create fan interest for the event. Sakuraba was submitted by Jason “Mayhem” Miller at DREAM.16 in September and lost a unanimous decision to Ralek Gracie at DREAM.14 in May of this year.
Little news of how exactly the “special rules” bout between Aoki and Nagashima will happen but most likely the first round should begin under the K-1 rules then move onto MMA afterwords. Nagashima has little chance of lasting a round against the submission expert in an mma match, and Aoki is more likely to survive a K-1 round.