Heavy underdog Marius Zaromskis claimed the vacant DREAM Welterweight championship yesterday with knockout wins over Hayato Sakurai and Jason High in the final round of the Grand Prix at DREAM.10. Zaromiskis’ striking was superb as be picked both men apart in their contests before ending each fight with a head kick. Sakurai was badly cut over the left eye midway through the opening ten minutes and a fired up Zaromskis finished the fight with a head kick and a barrage of punches shortly after. High barely got by his first round opponent Andre Galvao by split decision and was having early success with takedowns in the final. Zaromskis however escaped and ended the fight with a head kick set up by a three punch combo. The 26 year old Lithuanian improved his record to 11-2 with 9 knockouts and his only two losses coming to former Cage Rage champion and TUF9 competitor (sort of, he got eliminated by James Wilkes in the first episode) Che Mills.
In the evenings super fights, Shinya Aoki proved to me that he doesn’t indeed have worse stand up fighting then myself by outstriking returning contender Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro en route to a unanimous decision. In what turned out to be a 10 minute feeling out process, Aoki repeatedly scored with kicks for the duration of the opening stanza. Shaolin scored a takedown in the 2nd stanza, but was unable to do anything significant in Aoki’s guard and it proved too little too late as he lost the decision. Also on the card, Paulo Filho survived some scary moments against Melvin Manhoef before submitting the K-1 veteran with an armbar midway through the first round. TUF7 veteran Jesse ‘JT Money’ Taylor defeated Dong Sik Yoon by injury early in the 1st round.
