Aoki vs. Hansen III announced for Dream 10

Dream has recently announced that WAMMA lightweight champion Shinya Aoki will face off with Joachim Hansen at Dream 10 which is set to take place on July 20 at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

The fight will be for the Dream lightweight championship currently held by Hansen. The title was obtained by Hansen with a victory over Aoki and this rematch will be his first defense of the crown.

The pair are far from strangers as the match-up scheduled for July 20 will mark the third time these two lightweights have butted heads in the ring.

The first bout between Aoki and Hansen took place at Pride Shockwave which went down on New years Eve, 2006. Aoki came into the fight off of five consecutive victories and improved it to six with a technically superb gogoplata over Hansen in the very first round.

Aoki continued with his winning ways for close to two years before he crossed paths with Hansen again, putting together a string of thirteen consecutive victories before the pairs second meeting.

Hansen drastically turned the tables on the “Tobikan Judan” in the rematch between the two that took place in the final round of the Dream Lightweight Grand Prix on July 21, 2008.

After coming up on the losing end of a decision to Eddie Alvarez in a slugfest that was waged in the opening round of the lightweight grand prix, Hansen never should have been in the ring with Aoki on that fateful night. If it hadn’t been for a submission victory obtained over Kultar Gill in the evening’s reserve bout, and Eddie Alvarez’ ridiculously swollen eye he earned while stopping Tatsuya Kawajiri to advance to the finals, things could have ended up quite differently for Hansen.

What did end up happening was Hansen’s brutal first round TKO stoppage over Aoki that will set up the rubber-match for all of the glory at Dream 10.

A full list of the participants expected for Dream 10 are listed below.

Lightweight Championship – Shinya Aoki vs. Joachim Hansen

Welterweight Grand Prix Semifinals

Andre Galvao
Jason High
Hayato Sakurai
Marius Zaromskis