HDNet to air all nine hours of DREAM NYE event live starting 1:00 AM ET

Starting on Saturday, December 31, at 1:00 AM EST (10 PM PT Friday evening, Dec. 30), HDNet will be broadcasting all nine hours of the DREAM: Fight for Japan: Genkidesuka!! Oomisoka!! 2011 New Year event. Yes, ‘DREAM: Fight for Japan: Genkidesuka!! Oomisoka!! 2011’ is the event’s official name.

Replays will show portions of the event, but this will be the only opportunity to catch the entire show live and in its entirety.

The event is co-promoted by Antonio Inoki and Dream, and is a befuddling combination of the steller and the asburd, and worse.

History reveals some remarkable combinations – Up plus down, Robert De Niro plus Martin Scorsese, bacon plus anything. Japanese MMA has historically created some memorable combinations, but not always for the good. JMMA has offered some of the greatest fights in the history of fights, and it has offered Giant Silva vs. Akebono, Fedor vs. Zuluzinho, Takase vs. Manny Yarborough, Bob Sapp who deserves mention all by himself, a debuting Jose Canseco vs. Hong Man Choi, and the list goes down, more or less without end.

The card is headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii, which could be more competive than Fedor’s fans believe. The Lightweight and Featherweight title bouts, Shinya Aoki vs. Satoru Kitaoka and Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Takeshi Inoue, could be famous. Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Kazuyuki Miyata and Hayato Sakurai vs, Ryo Chonan also have tremendous potential.

When the card gets to Megumi Fujii vs. Karla Benitez, things start to muddy. It is weird to pair one of the greatest female fighters in the world with someone coming of a loss; all the more so as Benitez is a striker without a well developed ground game.

Then there is the four-man Bantamweight Tournament, with a reserve bout. However fun one-day tournaments may have been to watch in the 90s, there is a reason they have disspeared in the dominant market for MMA.

Kickboxing or for that matter boxing are tremendous fight sports, but it is unusual to add kickboxing to a major MMA show, and DREAM does it twice, with Yuta Kubo vs. Nils Widlund and Masaaki Noiri vs. Kengo Sonoda.

And it gets stranger. The term ‘Mixed rule’s used to be a shorthand reference for Mixed Martial Arts rules, but now it has come to mean an occasional convention in Japan where one round is held under one rule set, and another round with another rule set. There is no precedent for this in any mainstream fight sport.

K-1 fighter Yuichiro “Jienotsu” Nagashima, coming off a mixed rules surprise defeat of Shinya Aoki, is fighting Katsunori Kikuno, with an initial three-minute K-1 rules round, and a second five-minute Dream rules round.

Lastly there are the pro wrestling bouts.

Josh Barnett may be the best heavyweight in MMA. His profile to the casual fan is far below where it deserves to be. With the dissolution of the Strikeforce heavyweight division, and historical statements by UFC President Dana White that he does not want Barnett in the UFC, the hardcore fans would love to see Barnett fight. Instead, he will be doing cool acrobatics with Hideki Suzuki.

Peter Aerts, one of the greatest strikers of all time, will face Kazuyuki Fujita, one of the hardest chins of all time. The fight is pretty interesting, except it is not a fight, it is a pantomime.

Sylvia was originally expected to fight Brett Rogers, but recent legal difficulties prevented “The Grim” from getting a visa, so instead Sylvia will have a pro wrestling bout with French striking legend Jerome Le Banner. Le Banner’s last MMA bout was a losing effort vs. Satoshi Ishii at a New Year’s Eve show last year. Sylvia’s last pro wrestling bout was a losing effort vs. Josh Barnett late in 2010. “I loved it,” Sylvia said. “It feels similar to a fight in walking out into the crowd but not so much stress.”

If there is a saving grace to the pro wrestling bouts, it is that although MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba is returning to the ring, no one will be trying to hurt him, in a four-man tag team battle where he is paired with Katsuyori Shibata, facing off against Shinichi Suzukawa and Atsushi Sawada.

It is sad that in a field where one firm has made billions in valuation with the simple slogan “As real as it gets” the most viewed event this year in a nation that once dominated the sport is a dog’s breakfast of great bouts, mixed with sharks vs fish, mixed with pro wrestling, mixed with mixed rules, with the potential for a work in the mix.