The semifinal bouts for DREAM’s open weight tournament, which has been dubbed “Super Hulk,” were recently revealed during the Affliction: “Trilogy” press conference in New York City.
The fights are scheduled for DREAM 11 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, in September. No official date has been set at this time.
First up will be Japanese fan favorite Ikuhisa Minowa, who has fought virtually every big name overseas under the sun (albeit with inconsistent results). He has the daunting task of facing off against 7’2” gargantuan, Hong Man Choi.
Minowa earned his spot by knocking off the modern day Goliath, Bob Sapp, which he did by locking in an achilles lock that forced “The Beast” to tap at DREAM 9 last month. He will face a similar assignment against Choi — who wailed on baseball’s steroid stool pigeon Jose “Can”seco for his advancement in the grand prix — at an even greater size disadvantage.
On the other side of the bracket, Gegard Mousasi, who vacated his DREAM middleweight title recently because he desired a move to light heavyweight, will face off against the dangerous Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou.
Mousasi made short work of “Super Samoan” Mark Hunt in his quarterfinal bout, taking his much larger counterpart to the mat quickly where he would go to work for a kimura straight away, eventually getting it and forcing Hunt to tap.
While in his preliminary bout, Sokoudjou got back to his winning ways by trouncing 6’ 11”, 330-pound Jan “The Giant” Nortje. Despite being considerably outsized, “The African Assassin” was able to take “The Giant” down and pound on him furiously, which forced the referee to intervene and waive off the action.
However, Sokoudjou continued the onslaught in a moment of depravity, which led to both corners storming the ring. The good news is that cooler heads eventually prevailed, though Sokoudjou — who said he felt like a “douche bag” for the miscue — has taken a verbal lashing from fans for the controversy.
The “Super Hulk” tournament finalists will then do battle on New Years Eve at the annual Dynamite!! event.
DREAM 11 is also expected to feature the semifinal bouts of the featherweight grand prix. Though the pairings are still to be announced, it will feature fan favorite and underdog Hideo Tokoro, jiu-jitsu phenom Bibiano Fernandes, hard-hitting slugger Hiroyuki Takaya and also wrestling stud Joe Warren, who shocked the World recently by defeating featherweight superstar Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.
Here is the current line-up for DREAM 11:
Featherweight grand prix participants:
Joe Warren (2-0)
Hideo Tokoro (22-16-1)
Bibiano Fernandes (5-2)
Hiroyuki Takaya (11-6-1)“Super Hulk” open weight grand prix semifinals:
Hong Man-Choi (2-2) vs. Ikuhisa Minowa (42-30-8)
Gegard Mousasi (25-2-1) vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (6-4)
For more on DREAM click here.
56 Comments »
hunt was winning that fight till he got caught
This has turned out to be quite entertaining to me. Very interested in the next show.
I like how Minowa gets shafted here, both his fights he gets to give up 100+ lbs, nice.
Royce, Royler, Ralek and Rodrigo Gracie will be on Inside MMA tomorrow night FYI
WHAAT!?? are you talkinng about!? did oyu even watch the fight…they both just barely got start the feeling out process when gegard droped him….hunt threw like 2 shots when he got hit…from there it only lasted a minute before gegard took his arm home.
what was Badr Hari thinking he was gonna do when he jumped in the ring after soko. did he think he was gonna handle him or something?! LOL, Hari can’t even beat a fulltime mma fighter at his own sport of kickboxing. the guy needs to stick to fighting mid-level fighters in K-1 instead of jumping in the ring with professional mma fighters
Wasn’t it Ray Sefo??? Just a wild guess but I think his plan was to smack Sokodjou. My money would have been on Sefo seeing as Sokodjou just threw about 20 unanswered punches which means his notoriously crap cardio would be shot to hell. Sokodjou’s shit anyway, he’s found his level fighting freakshow bouts in Japan.
duece: u r highly underestimating Badr Hari. He would FOCKING DESTROY soko!
I agree john but he wasn’t even there was he???
Got caught in a Kimura. LOL.
the super hulk tournament is gonna be won but a not so much of a hulk, not even a heavy weight. mouasi or soko ftw
I agree with that. Probably not Soko tho…
You are right who ever comes out of the Soko/Mousasi fight is going to win this thing. They are the most athletic and skilled of the guys in the tourney.
Mousasi all the way!!! BUt for the meantime, Sobral for the beatdown!! But I know Mousasi can hold his own against Babalu.
As for Soko the Jew, he f**kin’ sucks!!!
i hope soko ends mousasi’s rediculous over hype
Probably won’t happen but i’d love to see Soko up against Hong Man Choi
Me too. Soko will kill his legs!!!!!!
Yeah he does have some nasty kicks for sure
Yeah and enough cardio to deliver about three of them!
lol, so soku, who has proven he sucks is gonna beat someone legit?
how?
has proven to be able to beat anyone but has large holes in his game! hes beaten better fighters than mousasi!
I am not lying when I say I almost just spit my water on my screen I was laughing so hard. I can’t remember a more hyped guy come into the UFC and suck…cro cop maybe, but I’m a fan!
I don’t know Kev
When coming into the UFC he was 4-1 with KO’s over Little NOG and Arona, so his Hype well deserved at FIRST!
I have always like Soko and losses to Machida, Luiz Cane, and Bobalu are nothing to be ashamed of!
Yea he has some basic fundamental holes in his game that he’ll need to fix if he ever wants to make it far but he is exciting with KO power and vicious kicks!
That being said i just don’t know if he can beat Mousassi (but i’ll be pulling 4 him).
Kevin,
I wouldn’t say Cro Cop sucked, as much as I would say he was not able to deal with the octagon and Gonzaga crushed him with that head kick. Soku, on the other hand, was a massive disappointment (and the Predator mask still kills me).
socal, I said more hyped guy, not over hyped.
Jeff, I’m a huge, loyal cc fan, he sucked in the octagon! Hope he’s been finally training in the cage full time!
GG is another guy I like but think is a bit over rated!
Right BUT if your saying is is The most hyped guy ever in UFC and sucks then he is over rated there fore over hyped!
just how i see it lol
WTF are you on about SoCalStunNa?? At the end of the day Suckadjou is sh!t, and has no chance of beating mousasi.
butters is on crack. butter is good with crackERS bitch, NOT crack. no way is soko beating mousasi – mousasi is the future and 2009 is his year.
Butters butters butters…You’re blaspheming my man. there is no effin’ way Soko ends Mousasi’s hyper train. Sobral could do it and end Soko’s tear, but if it’s ending Mousasi’s hype, that really doesn’t prove anything because it’s proven that Sobral is tough as nails could beat any LHW at any given night[yep, I said that, let the flames begin!]. Sokodjou isn’t the man to end all the Mousasi hype. As one here said[Synyster I guess], 2009 is Mousasi’s year!
F’sho Syd. I’m not worried at ALL about the Soko fight. What kind of worries me is when Minowa beats Choi. I can see them sneaky likkle Japanese fights sliding in an ankle lock on my boy. I don’t know much about Minowa, but it makes me nervous. Gegard is a young guy, so losses are definitely in his future, and its been awhile since the last one, so (almost) every fight will have me a bit worried.
Vagabond FOR THE F^CKING WIN!!!!
Soko is the most overhyped guy in years, he’s still living off those 2 big wins in Pride, face it the guy is a one dimensional striker with no cardio or ground game and to top it all he attacks opponents after the stoppage Bob Sapp style. On the other hand, Mousasi is a dangerous all rounder who dominated the MW division in Dream and is now fighting bigger guys in the US and Japan in order to challenge himself further, I have no idea how you can want Soko to beat Gegard, Mousasi is the better fighter and personality.
Well said Dave.
I love how Minowa’s the only one there.
lol…i didn’t even notice that. Looks like he snuck in after everyone left or somethin
Yea 4 real wtf!
LMAO
i can’t believe I didn’t notice that either…LMAO!!!
It is a shame this is single elimination. I would love to see Mr. Roid smashed again!
They had to get back to the states in time for his girlfriend/cornerman to work her scheduled shift at Hooters.
which one is mr.roid their are a few canidates
I loved the combination of fear and shame on his face as he ran away from the Korean freak… then his patented ‘fall on ground, roll over and cover face’ technique… priceless.
you could actually see what he was thinking in real time LMAO!!!
Did you guys have seen what i post yesterday about his after fight comments?
Just in case…CAN_seco
I went into that fight feeling good, I was controlling the fight and keeping him at bay. I kept winging that overhand right and if it connected he would’ve been KO’d no question but he did a good job of avoiding it. Unfortunately my knee gave out, its a shame because up until that point I feel I was dominating using my footwork and I’m confident I would’ve won the fight. I injured my knee before the fight and I was advised to pull out but I took the risk and fought anyway.Choi is a very tough guy, in my opinion he gave Fedor the toughest fight of his career to date but during the fight I could see in his eyes that he was slightly dizzy about ready to go had I landed a few more blows I probably would have finished him.
But those are the breaks of being a MMA fighter. Now I know that I can compete with the best and I want to step up to the UFC eventually. This fight raised my confidence, If I could hang with the best in the world and dominate the way I was doing then I’m confident I could do the same against some of the big names in the UFC. You have to keep in mind that Choi weighed in at over 300 pounds, guys in the UFC are much smaller and that’s definitely a factor.
Well after I injured my knee I couldn’t remember anything, certainly not tapping. I wouldn’t ever want to go out like that. I’m hoping when people saw my fight they said ‘now that’s a warrior’ because I honestly gave it my all when I went out there.Right now I’m just resting my knee when I’m fully recovered then I’ll see where I will go from there.
LOL… OMG, what a RETARD!
LMAO!Here is my favorite part”I’m hoping when people saw my fight they said ‘now that’s a warrior” LOL!
he actually looked a lot better than i thought he would. he showed he knew some footwork and knew how to work punch+kick combos. he looked 10x better than he did against sikahema and bonaduce. give the guy a break cause u all know that between 1987-90, there wasn’t a more polarizing figure in professional sports. he was the sh*t for a while
Cmon deuce4,sure he was a good baseball player back in the days.I still have a poster of him in the closet.But his performance was terrible plus he said that he didn’t tap and he think that he can be in the UFC…I believe that we have all the right to laugh of him!
He may have been “the s*it” at baseball but he’s definitely S*IT at MMA. He was god awful and faked a knee injury to avoid getting sparked out. Not only is he s*it at MMA but a coward to boot!
good luck jose trying to get into the ufc without getting busted for steroids
He acted like he blew his knee out…but did he?
I think his knee’s been buggered for a long time.
Looked like an exit strategy from an unwilling combatant.
You nailed it double J.
Mousasi is going to take it all the way.
hong man choi will KO(with punch or knee) minowaman
mousasi will SUBMIT soko and…
the final: hong man choi vs Mousasi