Following an entertaining morning of fights at DREAM 9, DREAM has announced two more explosive bouts for their July 20 event as WAMMA top ranked lightweight Shinya Aoki will fight jiu-jitsu ace Vitor Ribeiro and former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho will take on Dutch kickboxer Melvin Manhoef.
Shinya Aoki (20-4) was originally slated to fight Joachim Hansen for the promotion's lightweight title at DREAM 10, but that bout has been scrapped for unspecified reasons. Aoki is coming off a knockout loss to Hayato Sakurai at DREAM 8 and an exhibition submission loss to heavyweight phenom Fedor Emelianenko. He holds notable wins over Eddie Alvarez, Caol Uno, Gesias Cavalcante and the aforementioned Joachim Hansen.
Vitor Ribeiro (20-2) also fought at DREAM 8 defeating Katsuhiko Nagata via 1st round TKO. He was coming of a loss in his last outing to Gesias Cavalcante 18-months ago at a 2007 K-1 Hero's event. Ribeiro is a former Shooto welterweight champion and Cage Rage lightweight champion with notable career wins over Jean Silva, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Joachim Hansen and Mitsuhiro Ishida.
Paulo Filho (16-1) hasn't fought since suffering his first career loss to Chael Sonnen at WEC 36 last November. The bout was a rematch of their first fight which Filho won. Zuffa opted not to re-sign Filho after his bizarre performance in the rematch in which he bandied about the ring talking to himself and staring off into the crowed. He has dealt with numerous personel issues such as depression and substance abuse problems which were said to have affected the performance. Filho is said to be clean and sober now after a stint in rehab and time away from the sport and has reportedly made a complete recovery.
Melvin Manhoef (23-5-1) has been more active lately, recently defeating Stefan Leko in a kickboxing match on May 16 in Amsterdam. In his last MMA bout, Manhoef defeated Mark Hunt on FEG's K-1 Dynamite New Year's Eve show and is now 6-1 in his last seven fights.
DREAM 10 will take place at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan and will also feature the final two rounds of the promotion's Welterweight Grand Prix tournament as Hayato Sakurai will take on Marius Zaromskis and Andre Galvao will fight Jason High.







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