Shinya Aoki Shut Out Against Gilbert Melendez

It isn't very often, especially within the confines of one division, where the consensus number one and number two get dissected by opponents that many believed would be easy wins for them. Yet in the realm of the Lightweight division this is exactly what happened; first BJ Penn's loss to Frankie Edgar last week and now tonight Shinya Aoki lost to a very game Gilbert Melendez.

The hype for the fight was if Aoki wins, many would consider him the number one lightweight in the world and that his ground skills would be too much for Melendez. Aoki, of course, went as far as to say that if he lost, Japanese MMA would find itself in a very dark place. In the grand scheme of things, Shinya Aoki losing in a very decisive manner does throw a wrench into the works, but is hardly a death rattle for DREAM or Japanese MMA as a whole. 

Aoki is never known as a stand up fighter, and against fighters with superior stand up he has shown quite a bit of weakness. The big differences between Aoki's fights in Japan and his fight in Strikeforce were the cage and his inability to wear grappling pants. Aoki scoffed and brushed off the questions that came from American reporters who questioned if he'd have a hard time getting traction without his grappling pants, but the few times where he was able to get a hold of Melendez and was working the rubber guard it was more difficult for him to hold on or really do anything of note from the position. The other crux which he wasn't able to overcome was the cage, Melendez was able while on the ground to push Aoki up against the cage and thusly block any sort of offense he could have from the bottom position. 

If the fight happened in Japan there is no doubt it would've been a different fight without a cage and with the different rules. Of course this pokes a lot of holes in how people rank MMA, especially in the lightweight division, as this shows just how hard it is to compare American MMA and Japanese MMA. The fact that Aoki did not win a single round is almost irrelevant to his fighting style as Shinya Aoki has never been a truly dominant fighter as opposed to a fighter that can fight himself out of bad positions and pull off impressive wins. Aoki has no stand up to speak of and went into this fight with grappling alone at his disposal.

I know for many the talk of a rematch will die down as it wouldn't seem competitive, but a rematch under DREAM rules in a ring could be an entirely different fight and one I'd like to see.