Dynamite!, Japanese MMA’s traditional year-end supershow took place earlier today from the Saitama Super Arena with FEG organizations Dream and K-1 coming together to put on over six hours of action.
I haven’t seen all of the fights yet but luckily was able to catch two of the three fights attracting most of the attention in Alistair Overeem vs. Todd Duffee and Marius Zaromskis vs. Kazushi Sakuraba . Overeem was unstoppable against a Duffee who quite frankly looked like he didn’t want to be there, quickly tearing into the overmatched American and knocking him out in just 19seconds. The victory gives Overeem a third shiny belt, this time the Dream Interim Heavyweight Title.
Less specatcular was the latest sad chapter in the decline of Sakuraba, with the badly hurting former golden boy of Pride FC being pulled out of his Dream Welterweight Title Match against Zaromskis after just two minutes when his ear was ripped off. Ariel Helwani is reporting that FEG are saying that they’re confident of saving and reattaching the ear. This latest injury problem just highlights the fact that Sakuraba has no business in any ring, a point underlined by the two minutes of action when a heavily tapped Sakuraba just stood in front of Zaromskis, allowing the champion to tee off and land at will.
The other noteworthy fight (which I haven’t seen all of) was the hybrid rules match between kickboxer Yuichiro Nagashima and Dream champion Shinya Aoki. Aoki actually somehow managed to make it out of the first round which was fought under K-1 rules only to be caught with a pitchperfect knee when going for a takedown earlier in the second MMA half of the fight. 2010 isn’t going to be a year that Aoki is going to want to remember in a hurry.
We’ll have a fuller recap in due course, but courtsey of MMA Fighting the full results are as follows:
- MMA Featherweight Title: Hiroyuki Takaya def. Bibiano Fernandes via unanimous decision
- MMA: Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Josh Thomson via unanimous decision
- MMA: Jason High def. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai via split decision
- K-1: Akiyo Nishiura and Tetsuya Yamato fought to a majority draw
- MMA Welterweight Title: Marius Zaromskis def. Kazushi Sakuraba via first-round TKO (doctor)
- MMA: Satoshi Ishii def. Jerome Le Banner via unanimous decision
- MMA Heavyweight Title: Alistair Overeem def. Todd Duffee via KO – Round 1, 0:19
- K-1/MMA: Yuichiro Nagashima def. Shinya Aoki via KO (knee) – Round 2, 0:04
- K-1: Gegard Mousasi def. Kyotaro via unanimous decision
- MMA: Hiroshi Izumi def. Ikuhisa Minowa via TKO – Round 3, 2:50
- MMA: Sergei Kharitonov def. Tatsuya Mizuno via KO – Round 1, 1:25
- MMA: Hideo Tokoro def. Kazuhisa Watanabe via submission (armbar) – Round 3, 2:50
- MMA: Kazuyuki Miyata def. Caol Uno via unanimous decision
- MMA: Andy Ologun def. Katsuaki Furuki via unanimous decision
