Dream 12: Sakuraba, Overeem, Alvarez Get Cagey

If you had trouble sleeping Saturday night and happened to possess the attention span of someone with a gun to the head, you could’ve watched virtually eight hours of prizefighting with a tandem UFC 104/Dream 12 marathon. One session like that and you’d be ready for a job as an EMT: nicely desensitized.

Dream aired on HDNet in the early-morning hours Sunday with big names throughout, but none in any particular mood to be fighting one another. Alistair Overeem, looking like he has ingested the 2003 Alistair Overeem for the proteins, sunk in a trademark guillotine choke against James Thompson; in the newest chapter of the world’s slowest public execution, Kazushi Sakuraba took another few years off his life by eating several flush punches to the head courtesy Zelg Galesic before securing a kneebar. Not an even trade; Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez survived a demoralizing first round -- and gave Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney some slight palpitations -- before getting an arm-triangle submission against Katsunori Kinuko.

Bouts for the event were held in a white circular cage, a departure from most Japanese events using a ring: eventually, Dream will adopt Michael Buffer and possibly ring girl Edith, and the bizarro world will be complete.