DREAM 14 Tomorrow morning - Return of the Cage

Jayo_M

So, DREAM 14 is on at 8am GMT (I think!) and looks like a great card. It's also using the 'white cage' for only the second time, at the request of Mach Sakurai. I've to leave for training as soon as it starts so I won't be able to catch it live, but I'm sure it will be an absolute cracker. Might be the only place to catch Diaz for awhile too if that 9 month suspension happens!

Here's the card (robbed the pic from a thread on Sherdog) -

Gadge

A couple of potentially very good fights here. Will Saku take out another Gracie?

Nick Diaz is always great to watch too. Decent card.

Chewabacca

The more I think about the Diaz fight the more of a chance I give to Sakurai. He's about as durable and well rounded as they get and IMO he has a good chance of controlling Diaz.

I'd say the Sakuraba-Gracie fight will be ridiculously boring. I'm leaning towards Sakuraba to wrestle his way to a win but I don't know much about Ralek so I'm not sure.

None the less its a great card and Dream always seems to deliver great fights.

Jayo_M

I think Takaya/Hansen has the potential to be fight of the night. I don't know much of Ralek, but going by some interviews he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and isn't as delusional as some Gracie's :-p Hope he does well, but I think this was set up to reignite the legend of the 'Gracie Hunter' in Japan to boost ratings and try give Saku a new lease of life.

TechnoPool

jesus they must be running around of gracies for sakuraba to fight at this stage.

Kieran81

any sites/ links to watch it on

kid chaos

the guy with the red hair looks about 11 n a half

Gadge

Kieran81 wrote: »

any sites/ links to watch it on

http://www.justin.tv/snappleshd16

calex71

Jayo_M wrote: »

I think Takaya/Hansen has the potential to be fight of the night.

Agreed.

Otherwise not a stellar card in terms of Dream's past ones, but the card has been known to belie the quality of the events delivered in the past so have no doubt this will be worth checking out.

calex71

Was it just the way I have the aspect ratio set up or did the Dream Cage look huge

Saw the Diaz Vs Sakurai fight so far

Diaz by a nice armbar in the 1st which sakurai effectively handed him when they were on the ground and was trying to trasition to something of his own

Also caught the Hansen and Takaya fight

hansen KO'd in the 1st round, he didn't look great in the stand up exchanges at all was caught with jabs and strong low leg kicks several times and seemed very flat on his feet.

Edit : Just saw the Kid Yamamoto Vs Kiko Lopez fight it was in Japanese so didn't understand but did the

ref knee lopez in the face when he dived in to stop the fight :eek: watched it again looks like he nailed him, total accident on the ref's part and lopez was too out of it to have felt much poor guy.

Chewabacca

Overall quite a good event.

Spoiler on Saku/Gracie:

What the hell was the ref thinking in the last round of the Saku/Gracie fight? That was one of the stranger things I've seen in a long time.

Jayo_M

I was disappointed with Hansen. He's getting dropped way too regularly now, he either needs to tighten up his defence or consider his health! He also looks a bit too slow at this weight class now. Maybe a return to 155 would be worth a try.

The ref trying to get Saku's foot out of Ralek's shorts looked very strange, could only imagine what the people in attendance were thinking. Would Ralek have had such an easy time escaping the kimura if the ref didn't get involved?

Diaz was impressive but what was Sakurai thinking with rolling into the cage? Talk about a brainfart! I'd like to see Minowa take on Diaz at 185. Sick of these Minowa joke matches. Imani Lee? Why?

I was impressed with Miyata and Wicky is always fun, or at least interesting, to watch. Nice to see KID back in some sort of form, still doesn't look as good as he did.

Pretty good card all in all, lots of upsets too. Still prefer the ring though. How big did that cage seem though! Hopefully the event was a success for Dream, they try to put on great cards with great production but don't seem to be pulling in the ratings or turning over the profit they hope for.

MaeveD

Sakuraba v Ralek Gracie

This is not the full fight!!!

Footage of the last 2 mins of the last round starts at about 4 mins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_TFpZcDiak

That was weird. Ref pulled Ralek's shorts up, disturbing a sub attempt, then put
Saku in full mount on top of Ralek?As soon as the fight starts Ralek flips him over and gets an armbar. Ralek's fault in my opinion. You should get shorts that actually fit, he should know that as a grappler.
The refs in Japan have some weird ways of intervening in fights.