(Mousasi beats up Mizuno. Photo by Susumu Nagao.)
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DREAM.16 featured a bevy of big-name fighters in relatively mis-matched bouts, so other than a handful of upsets and a weight class reassignment, there wasn’t a lot of meaningful movement in the rankings after Saturday night’s fights were in the books.
The four-man DREAM Light Heavyweight Grand Prix culminated in the Gegard Mousasi winning the vacant DREAM Light Heavyweight Championship with a win over Tatsuya Mizuno. Mousasi holds on to #6 in FIGHT!’s Light Heavyweight Rankings while Mizuno enters the rankings at #25.
DREAM’s Lightweight Champion, Shinya Aoki, defended his belt against Marcus Aurelio, hanging tight at #3 in our Lightweight Rankings. Aurelio slips one spot, from #70 to #71.
In a less-meaningful main event bout, heavyweight judoka Satoshi Ishii beat middleweight Ikuhisa Minowa. Ishii remains unranked until he logs his third qualifying fight; “Minowaman” drops from #10 to #26 in the Middleweight Rankings. Also at middleweight, Jason Miller jumps back into the top 20, from #34 to #18, with a win over a worn-out Kazushi Sakuraba, who falls from #38 to #58.
The card was stacked with featherweight fights but again, there was little movement. Michihiro Omigawa held fast at #4 in our Featherweight Rankings with a win over Cole Escovedo, who stays put at #35. Hiroyuki Takaya sits tight at #8 after his win over Chase Beebe, who slips from #41 to #43. Kazuyuki Miyata moves up one spot, from #26 to #25, with a win over unranked Takeshi “Lion” Inoue. Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen sits tight at #14 with his win over Hideo Tokoro, who drops one spot, from #44 to #45. Mitsuhiro Ishida started the night as FIGHT!’s #60-ranked Lightweight, but after being reassinged to 145 pounds, he comes in at #19 with a weight mis-match win over Akiyo “Wicky” Nishiura, who enters our Bantamweight Rankings at #16.
In the night’s only other bout, James “Colossus” Thompson re-enters our Heavyweight Rankings at #78 after his loss to unranked Yusuke Kawaguchi.
(Miller ends his hero’s night early. Photo by Susumu Nagao.)
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