Minowa-Harn Tacked onto Saturday’s Dream 17 Card

Dream officials announced the matchup Tuesday, slotting the openweight contest as the evening’s opening fight.

The show, which takes place Saturday at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, will be headlined by a non-title tilt between Dream lightweight ace Shinya Aoki and former World Extreme Cagefighting titleholder “Razor” Rob McCullough.

The newly added bout will mark the big-stage return of “Minowaman” following a pair of wins on the Japanese regional circuit. Minowa (Pictured) embarked on a surprising campaign to win Dream’s Super Hulk tournament in 2009, most impressively punching out Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, but faltered in subsequent fights against Olympic judokas Satoshi Ishii and Hiroshi Izumi. On Saturday, the 35-year-old Pride veteran will shoot for his 50th career victory.

The brother of dismissed former sumo Hoshikaze, Harn also comes from a sumo background, winning Mongolian national titles in 2002 and 2007. Of late, the 33-year-old has turned his eye to pro-wrestling, appearing in Antonio Inoki’s Inoki Genome Federation. Harn has only two MMA bouts to his credit, a 2008 loss to then-Deep champion Yusuke Kawaguchi and an April 2010 victory over Seigo Mizuguchi.