Aoki: I'm the one who represents DREAM
 

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WAR Aoki, he's one of the most exciting fighters in the world to watch.

I'm glad he showed the class to not make excuses about the tournament format being the cause of his loss.

I personally believe the tournament format irrecoverably altered the outcome - ideally a well-rested Aoki vs. a well-rested and healthy Alvarez should have been the main event, not a worn-out Aoki vs. a Hansen that had lost (albeit a great fight) to Alvarez.

Either way, very good to hear that Aoki is determined to become better and stage a comeback. He's a fantastic fighter to watch and I look forward to watching how the LW picture plays out at DREAM in the coming years.

Agree, I want to see Alvarez vs Hansen 2 next. Aoki will get that belt eventually though, one of my favorite fighters to watch.

Im a guy who loves to see great striking in MMA. Aoki is one of those guys who just makes you appreciate the ground game that much more. He is just amazing to watch and I can't wait to see him fight again.

War Aoki

Alvarez represents Dream! Aoki is a good fighter but he lost me after the first fight with JZ. He looked like he was losing and took a flop on the phantom shot to the back of his head or whatever area they called illegal.

There's no question that the most significant thing to come out of DREAM so far (if you aren't named Joachim Hansen) has been the appearance from out of nowhere, and rise to top-10 (top-5 many places) prominence of Eddie Alvarez.

Dream basically proved again why I hate one day tournys in MMA. It is almost a sure thing someone will get hurt in the semis and alter the main event. Alavres deserved to be in that final after the way he fought in this tourny and earned his shot at Aoki for the LW title. Hell I think Kawajiri had more right to be in that final then Hansen, or even Uno, just because those two at least made it to the semis.

I like tournys, but the one day stuff has to go because rarely the best fighter wins the tourny.

Agreed fully. All MMA fans seem to love the tournament format, and I like it too, but I absolutely do not like the one-day format, for the exact reason you name here.

A grand prix type situation where all rounds, including the semis and finals, are on separate cards a couple months apart is fine and is very exciting.

But to put the semis and finals on the same card is just a very poor idea IMO. DREAM will be doing that again with their MW grand prix, because they've already announced that's how it will go down, but I really pray they will abandon that format after the MW finals at DREAM.6.

I agree too.

Just to clarify DREAM'S rules (I'm not disagreeing with you), the fighter that lost the semifinal to the fighter unable to continue in the finals is the first candidate to replace him in the finals; but they have a rule that if that fighter got stopped in the semis - KO, TKO or submission - that he's ineligible and they move to the winner of the alternate match, which is why Hansen did get the fight instead of Kawajiri.

Oh I did not know that was the rule. Thanks for clarifing.

They said it was to the back of the neck, which I think is still an illegal blow under DREAM's rules. Either way, it did seem a bit sketchy.

And yeah, Alvarez seems to be the rising LW representative for the organization. I don't think Aoki is going to be champ as long as Eddie's around.

Maybe, maybe not. I want to see both of them fully healthy, fighting each other.

Aoki is very easy to underestimate because he's so slight and wiry and is one of the few basically one-dimensional fighters still fighting at the top levels of MMA. It's easy to imagine that Alvarez could just blast him out, but Aoki is like a serpent that grabs ahold of you and immediately immerses you in coil after coil, controlling you and avoiding any damage, while all the way threatening to strangle you to death.