Dream v. Sengoku Show On For New Years Eve

Chris Nelson of BloodyElbow has been on top of the Dream v. Sengoku story from the start and he expands on the current situation:

At a joint press conference held Wednesday morning in Tokyo, K-1 and DREAM parent company Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG) officially confirmed the addition of a “DREAM vs. Sengoku” theme to FEG’s annual New Year’s Eve “Dynamite!!” show at Saitama Super Arena. The announcement comes two weeks after reports emerged that Sengoku would cancel its own December 31st event at Ariake Coliseum - a show which would have been headlined by a high-profile clash of heavyweight judokas in Satoshi Ishii and Hidehiko Yoshida.

Since then, numerous blogs and fans alike have predicted that Sengoku will begin cooperating with (or, in more severe estimations, be completely absorbed by) its former rival, and that the Ishii-Yoshida bout would be included as part of a package deal with FEG.

However, while it’s now clear that a number of Sengoku fighters will be included on the planned 19-bout “Dynamite!!” card - five to seven, says FEG president Sadaharu Tanigawa - it doesn’t appear that the elder Olympic gold medalist is fully on board with the crossover.

The Japanese MMA scene is always so multi-layered with the various promotions, networks, financial backers, fighters..etc.

As of right now there haven’t been any bouts announced but a lot of names are tied to all involved promotions and a joint show like this only exists to pull in mega-ratings which means that in the coming weeks we should see a lot of fight announcements as the NINETEEN fight card gets put together.

While Yoshida has made it clear that the fight with Ishii hasn’t been signed I’d be amazed if that fight doesn’t go down as originally rumored. The interest from the Japanese public is just too overwhelming to not see that fight take place.