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Bellator’s inaugural season has come to a close, and by most accounts it has been considered a success. They set out to crown four champions using the tournament format and were able to accomplish that goal without any major hiccups. They had quite a few exciting fights and finishes which they wisely used to get a decent amount of exposure through YouTube.

Fights and results after the jump.

Props to Fight Hymn and MMAShare for the videos.

DREAM has officially mapped out this year’s plans for the their lightweight title.

While we all patiently wait until August to watch Kenny Florian take on BJ Penn for the UFC Lightweight Championship, there’s another solid lightweight fight scheduled to take place in Japan in May to help tide us over.

Fields Dynamite!! 2008 took place earlier today at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Japanese MMA legends Kazushi Sakuraba and Kiyoshi Tamura finally squared off in the night’s main event.

In what should have the been the DREAM LW GP Final match-up, Eddie Alvarez and Shinya Aoki met for the WAMMA Lightweight Championship.

Melvin Manhoef stepped in on a day’s notice for Jerome LeBanner to fight the much bigger K-1 vet Mark Hunt in a DREAM rules match.

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, in the night’s David and Goliath bout, fought the Korean giant, Hong Man Choi.

Alistair Overeem took a tough fight under K-1 rules against K-1 Heavyweight king and resident bad boy Badr Hari.

Japanese freak show staple Bob Sapp participated in the mother of all freak shows when he fought an amateur wrestling champion dressed up as a Japanese anime character.

Gegard Mousasi, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, Semmy Schilt, Mighty Mo and Minnowaman were also in action.

The fight between Joachim Hansen and JZ Calvacante was canceled due an apparent head injury to Hansen. MMA Weekly has a report.

Results and thoughts after the jump.

Photo courtesy of Japan-MMA.com

With this year’s DREAM events receiving lackluster ratings, there were questions about whether or not FEG would hold a NYE DREAM event this year. While it doesn’t look like DREAM.7 will take place come Dec. 31, that doesn’t mean there won’t be an event. FEG held a press conference earlier today in Japan to announce this year’s K-1 DYNAMITE!! 2008 show. The event will feature DREAM fighters in MMA bouts as well as the traditional K-1 kickboxing matches.

MMA Weekly interviews lightweight fighter JZ Calvancante. JZ talks about the status of his injury, his desire to return to the ring on New Year’s Eve, and wants a shot at Joachim Hansen and the DREAM lightweight title.

Gesias ‘JZ’ Calvancante will be out of competition for 3-4 months with a torn ACL, according to Sherdog.com. Calvancante was the recent favorite to win the DREAM lightweight grand prix until Shinya Aoki eliminated him from the tournament at DREAM.2 by unanimous decision. ‘JZ’ is expected to undergo surgery on the knee as early as this Friday.

Just one day after DREAM.2 wrapped up, it appears both the Lightweight and Middleweight GP’s are losing its top competitors left and right. Shinya Aoki, coming off a huge victory over ‘JZ’ Calvacante at yesterday’s DREAM.2, apparently suffered a facial injury that will keep him out of round two of the tournament scheduled to take place less than two weeks from now. Calvacante was contacted to come to the rescue, but it appears DREAM officials weren’t offering enough to entice ‘JZ’ back into the tournament. The winner of the Aoki/Calvacante fight was expected to be the favorite to win the tournament.

Last night, while most of us were sleeping, DREAM.2 was going on over in Japan. The biggest and perhaps only really meaningful fight that occurred was Shinya Aoki vs. ‘JZ’ Calvacante. The rest of the fights were round-one bouts for DREAM’s Middleweight Grand Prix. Notable fighters participating included Japanese MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba, top ten middleweight Denis Kang, and BJJ phenom Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza.

DREAM.2 results have been updated in our fight cards archive and results section.

Quick results and thoughts after the jump.