In a nice treat for MMA fans DREAM has added a compelling heavyweight battle to their DREAM 8 fight card. SAVSCI favorite Jeff Monson will be back in the ring against a very tough opponent in Russian Sergei Kharitonov. Monson recently defeated Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson in a highly disputed decision at the March 23 ‘March Badness’ PPV (we covered ‘March Badness live here at SAVSCI). ‘The Snowman’ is as tough as they come and trains like a maniac, but can’t help but be somewhat concerned about the quick turnaround as he faces two tough opponents in two weeks on two different continents.

Kharitonov may be the most underrated heavyweight in MMA. The biggest rap on him is his relative inactivity with only 19 professional fights, though its hard to argue with a 16-3 record. Even harder to argue is the level of the opponents that he’s lost to: Aleksander Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Alistair Overeem (which he avenged a year later). He’s one of the toughest fighters mentally in the sport, which you’d expect from a veteran of Russia’s Airborne unit. Perhaps his biggest advantage over the relatively diminutive Monson will be his height: at 6′4″ he’ll enjoy a 9″ height advantage!

We’ll have live round by round coverage of DREAM 8 here at The Savage Science starting at 12 midnight Pacific/3 AM Eastern on April 5th.

DREAM 8 WELTERWEIGHT GP FIRST ROUND LIVE @ THE SAVAGE SCIENCE