By FCF Staff, photo courtesy Strikeforce
Dream has confirmed that MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba will face the promotion’s welterweight champion Marius Zaromskis, at the upcoming New Year’s Eve Dynamite card in Saitama, Japan. The bout will be for the title. (Pictured: Zaromskis hitting Evangelista)
Zaromskis (13-5) will head into the fight looking to win for the first time in 2010. In January and June, while competing under the Strikeforce banner, Zaromskis was stopped by Nick Diaz and Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos respectively. In the highlight reel striker’s most recent fight against Waachim Spiritwolf in November, the bout was declared a no contest, after Spiritwolf was accidently poked in the eye and could not continue.
In 2009, Zaromskis went 4-0 and had impressive stoppage wins over Jason High and Hayato Sakurai, en route to winning the Dream title.
Sakuraba (26-14-1) hasn’t fought since September, when he was dominated by veteran middleweight Jason Miller and submitted in the first round with an arm-triangle-choke. Prior to that, at Dream 14 in May, Sakuraba lost by unanimous decision to Ralek Gracie. In 2009 the former Pride star went 2-0 with submissions wins over Ruben Williams and Zelg Galesic.
Dream has also announced that UFC veteran Caol Uno (27-13-5) will take on Kazayuki Miyata (10-7) and has confirmed the lightweight bout between Josh Thomson and Tatsuya Kawajiri, which Strikeforce announced last week, for the card.
Some of the other bouts set for the event include featherweight champion Bibiano Fernandes defending his title against Hiroyuki Takaya, and lightweight champion Shinya Aoki vs. Yuichiro Nagashim in a non-title affair.
The Dynamite card, which will be hosted by the Saitama Super Arena, will be broadcast on HDNet.
