It took two fights for Shinya Aoki to defeat the uber-talented Gesias “JZ” Calvancante in the DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix - and he doesn’t even get to advance to the next round for his efforts.
The “Tobikan Judan” was first injured against Calvancante in their initial meeting at DREAM 1 back in March when an illegal elbow from JZ put Aoki on his back and unable to continue.
The bout was ruled a no-contest and both fighters were slated to face off again at DREAM 2 last Tuesday to determine who would advance to the Grand Prix semifinals. Again, Aoki suffered a facial injury but this time was able to finish the fight and outpoint the Brazilian for the win.
Despite the victory, the injury is reportedly too severe to allow Aoki enough time to recover before the semifinals at DREAM 3 on May 11th - barely two weeks away.
The first choice for a replacement was of course Calvancante, but Sherdog.com is reporting that JZ was unable to reach acceptable terms with the organization and has already left Japan.
While surely a disappointment for Aoki, no question this development has DREAM officials in a panic, with just two weeks to find a suitable replacement.
11 Comments »
That sucks. I wish JZ was in. Or perhaps send Florian or Tyson Griffin in.
yeah the ufc should send in one of there l.w.’s to bad it won’t ahppen.
didn’t see the fight but i heard calvancante was the one who took aoki down and ended up losing because the fight was on the ground!! wtf is that all about?! jz was whoopin on aoki standing last fight. why would he just go there and play into the other guy’s strengths? the whole situation’s kind of bizarre. i wonder if aoki was wearing those rainbow pants. lol. Nick Diaz should drop the fight that he has now and go show them wuts up to put his name back on the map.
that would be awesome to see Nick Diaz fill in! And i’ve seen the fight and Aoki did win. It seemed like he had control most of the fight and went for a lot of submission attempts.
Kama Kaze: I actually tried to post the same suggestion you posted on here yesterday but the site wasn’t allowing posts at the time. I think best case Scenario is that they get Diaz or Gilbert to take rainbow pants place in the 2nd round of the tournament. After all Nick and Gilberts contracts are not exclusive to EliteXC and EliteXC even sent Eddie Alvarez to Japan to compete in the Grand Prix. neither Gilbert or Diaz are booked to fight against anyone decent anyway. also they have both competed in PRIDe and have done well so they are familiar to Japan’s fan base and have experience dealing with their executives since DREAM is basically being run by the old PRIDE crew.
Another great replacement would be Takanori Gomi. However I dont know if his contract is exclusive to World Victory Road. KAMA or anyone else that have any idea about Gomi’s contract with WVR please…Spill the BEANS!!!!
John: eh! speaking of pride, you like how my name is blue? try click.
Melendez got his hands full with Thomson. Gomi would be perfect for this. Don’t know anything about his contract. I’m just a peasant - not an insider. lol. Hope the replacement is good though.
umm, c’mon guys dont yous remember the interview a week or two ago Aoki stated he didnt intend to compete in teh GP as it was too close to the JZ rematch
So Aoki being ‘disappointed’ is wrong
This would be a good place for someone like Leonard Garcia to go, he has to avoid the law anyways.
The Tournament Style are complete joke’s these day’s. You could win but then get injured in the process like Shinya Aoki and Kiyoshi Timora (?). Makeing the hole idea in the first place a bigger joke aswell. Very Sad!!!!!
Aoki should quit MMA and go to hollywood because the end of that first fight was an oscar winning performance on his part.
DREAM tournament rules suck. Of course MMA can result in injuries which require more than a couple of weeks to heal, and because of this, winning fighters get punished and the loser gets to proceed in his place.
What a load of crap.