Currently kicking around the MMA rumor mill: Gegard Mousasi vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou to fight at DREAM 9. The source of this rumor was right about the previous two fights added to the card (Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller vs. Ronaldo Jacare and JZ Calvan vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri) and it makes sense for both fighters. Mousasi is moving up to light heavyweight (and has vacated his DREAM middleweight GP, to be awarded to the Miller/Jacare winner) and Sokoudjou is a good litmus test for him. Sokoudjou became a star in Japan due to his two spectacular KO victories over tough opponents while fighting in PRIDE. He KO’d Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in just :33 seconds at PRIDE 33 in Las Vegas, and followed that up with a first round KO victory over Ricardo Arona at PRIDE 34 in Tokyo. His UFC run didn’t go too well for him, however, losing two of his three fights in ‘the octagon’. In all fairness, he lost to a couple of elite fighters in Lyoto Machida and Luis Cane and those two losses don’t look as bad on his resume now as they did at the time. Nevertheless, Zuffa cut him loose and he last fought on Affliction’s ‘Day of Reckoning’ card against another very tough opponent in Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral who defeated him by submission midway through the second round.

For Sokoudjou, a return to Japan is a chance to revitalize his career and a win over Mousasi would definitely be a quality victory on his record. For Mousasi, Sokoudjou represents a decent challenge for his light heavyweight debut but its still a fight he ’should’ win. Mousasi has only lost once since the early part of his career, to Akihiro Gono on a PRIDE Bushido event in 2006. He’s won eleven straight MMA fights since then and even has a K-1 kickboxing win on his record (over K-1 regular Musashi at the Fields Dynamite New Years show). During his current winning streak he’s defeated Melvin Manhoef, Evangelista ‘Cyborg’ Santos, Ronaldo Jacare, Denis Kang and tough Korean judoka Dong Sik Yoon.

While we’re on the subject of MMA rumors, Mousasi is also rumored to be facing Vitor Belfort at the third Affliction show. Belfort has revitalized his career with back-to-back KO victories over tough vet Terry Martin and even tougher vet Matt ‘The Law’ Lindland. Belfort sort of fell of the map after a 9 month steroid suspension in 2006, but he’s just 32 years old and clearly has a good deal of fighting left in his career. His 8 career losses have come against a ‘who’s who’ of MMA competition: Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem (twice), Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture (twice) and Kazushi Sakuraba.

The third Affliction show itself has also been the subject of rumors, with a recent report intimating that it would be a co-promotion with DREAM to take place in Japan. No new information on that, but if they’re going to have it in June or July they’d likely need to announce it soon perhaps even at DREAM 9. Our original report on the Affliction/DREAM co-promotion rumors at the link below:

Affliction to co-promote event with DREAM in Japan? @ THE SAVAGE SCIENCE

Mousasi has also considered moving up to heavyweight and has expressed interest in facing Russian fighting god Fedor Emelianenko. Mousasi is 6′0″ so he could match up with the 6′0″ Fedor in theory (at least as well as anyone can match up with ‘The Last Emperor’) but would have problems against many of the other top heavyweights due to height and/or weight disadvantage. Our guess is that he’s best suited for the light heavyweight division. What’s amazing about Mousasi is that he’s compiled a 24-2-1 record and is only 23 years old!