The Fracture of a DREAM; The Weight Class Discussion

The only real stories coming out of DREAM.15 involve weight-cutting and what DREAM needs to do to be competitive with its American counterparts. This is very much a departure from last year, where DREAM would put on a fight and the post-fight discussions would revolve around the fights. I'm not really sure what this tells us; if it is that Japanese MMA has finally, truly jumped the shark, or if US MMA fans have simply become more fickle. Zach Arnold discusses the hype, or distinct lack thereof for Aoki vs. Kawajiri.

We had a Lightweight fight that, only for the sake of rankings, meant something. In every other context, it wasn't a fight that was heavily pushed in Japan nor was it a fight that anyone was even talking about (especially the hardcore fans) in the week leading up to it. Usually with the hardcore fans online, you hear some sort of buzz about what happens in Japan. Perhaps there was no buzz for this fight because of the way Aoki got manhandled by Gilbert Melendez last April in Nashville.

This, of course, is issue number one. Fans have decided that in Japan the competition needs to be amped up. Is it the egg on the face of all of the fans and bloggers who insisted that Shinya Aoki was the #2 Lightweight in the world before Gilbert Melendez was able to neutralize him on the ground? As after that the absolute drubbing Aoki took was unreal. Aoki went from the second best to being clearly overrated, and by proxy, Japan was overrated.

So then comes the solutions, with the biggest solution being called for is a reform in weight classes and for weight-cutting to become a standard for Japanese fighters, to keep them competitive with their American counterparts. Leland Roling makes the case for weight-cutting.

Very few fighters in Japan cut weight, but there is some interesting evidence to support it's use. Michihiro Omigawa is currently 7-1 in his last 8 fights as a featherweight, and while we can make an argument that some of those bouts were gift decisions -- it's obvious that Omigawa is a far better fighter at featherweight than he ever was a lightweight. Kazuyuki Miyata is 3-0 in the weight class, defeating one of the better Japanese lightweight-to-featherweight converts in Takafumi Otsuka in his last bout. Strength is one of the huge pluses for Japanese fighters finally dropping in weight, and in Omigawa's case -- his overall strength has been a crushing advantage against almost all of his opponents.

Nightmare of Battle talks about DREAM's proposed split into legitimate Featherweight and Bantamweight classes after sort of tossing out catchweights for the past few years that best fit the competitors. NOB goes into detail of which fighter would fight where, which creates some interesting divisions for DREAM.

One has to wonder, oft-aloud, if this is really the solution for Japan's issues, or if the way of the samurai has simply become outdated by modern technology and training, yet again.

SBN coverage of DREAM.15