If your weekend didn’t entail having your ass fixed to the couch for much of it, you may have missed Dream 15 where Shinya Aoki dominated Tatsuya Kawajiri en route to a first round, tap out win (by Achilles Lock). Following Aoki’s one sided decision loss to Gilbert Melendez in April, a lot of people were probably expecting the submission wiz to come out aggressively, and sure enough, the Dream champ immediately took the fight to the ground and did his thing. Of course, ‘his thing’, sometimes entails the horrific bending or breaking of human appendages, and in a post-fight interview with Sports Navi, Mr. “Love Em or Hate Em” Aoki had this to say about Saturday’s win (thanks to MMA Bay for the quote):
“When I caught (Kawajiri) and tried to submit him, I heard a loud crackle sound. He did not tap so I thought ‘Ok, this match just became a death-fight’ and I was going to destroy his leg. I knew Kawajiri never taps so I could not win without breaking his bone. I was hoping for an open-fracture. No one could have endured [that submission] like Kawajiri. His heart is iron.”
It’s not every day you read post fight comments that include the words ‘open fracture’ and ‘death fight’, but hell, it makes for good copy (although the comment about the ’open-fracture’ shouldn’t sit well with most). As far as the “heart is iron” comment, it’s true, Kawajiri did try to hang in there for what was probably several agonizing moments. As far as his next gig, Aoki’s made it clear that he wants to rematch Melendez in the Dream ring; it’s worth a look no?