Former Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson (18-3) will travel to Japan to face DREAM fighter Tatsuya Kawajiri for the year-end FieLDS Dynamite!! 2010 event.
In a recent interview with MMAWeekly.com, Thomson says that originally he was supposed to have faced DREAM lighteweight champ Shinya Aoki and that he took the fight on three weeks notice.
Of course, as we know Aoki will instead face K-1 Max fighter Yuichiro Nagashima in a DREAM/K-1 mixed rules bout and Thomson was given another tough Japanese fighter in Kawajiri.
“I was at a (Golden State) Warriors game and all of a sudden (Scott) Coker just texted me and he was like ‘hey, do you want to fight in Japan against Aoki?’ and I’m like, ‘no, not really, I haven’t been training, I’m not in shape, and it’s three weeks away.’ He’s like, ‘well, why don’t we try to figure something out.’ I guess Gil (Melendez) had pulled out of the fight with Aoki and so they really needed somebody to kind of keep their relationship strong with Dream and Strikeforce…Originally, I didn’t want the fight based on that he’s somebody I would have liked to prepared a lot longer for. I mean this is somebody with even an eight- or 10-week camp you can’t really be ready enough for him,” Thomson said. “This time it really came down to keeping the relationship between Strikeforce and Dream together, and making it work between Strikeforce fighters and the Dream fighters, and I felt like we can do the deal and get it done and now it’s fine.”
Thomson has won two straight since he lost the Strikeforce title to current champ Gilbert Melendez a year ago. He’s gone on to defeat Pat Healy last June and Gesias Cavalcante in October. Another victory for the lightweight could put him back into title contention.