Starting September 24 in coordination with the company’s DREAM 17 event, all frames will be five minutes rather than handled in the style made popular by PRIDE involving an opening round of ten with any additional periods lasting half as long. This will also pertain to championship clashes where a 5×5 format will be adopted in comparison to the 3×5 used for non-title bouts.

Additionally interesting, though not formally announced, the company hinted at the likelihood of Shinya Aoki seeing action on the card with a “foreigner” standing opposite from him in the ring.

While Aoki’s future remains a mystery, one match-up was mentioned in the company’s statements between former Shooto champions Caol Uno (26-14-5) and “Lion” Takeshi Inoue (20-5) with a shot at Hiroyuki Takaya’s featherweight belt likely on the line.

Uno, a UFC and K-1 veteran, recently snapped a rough patch with a Unanimous Decision win in May, adding to an impressive run over a fifteen-year career featuring similar success against a number of notable fighters such as Yves Edwards and Mitsuhiro Ishida.

The colorful Inoue is coming off back-to-back TKOs and holds past victories over Antonio Carvalho, Rumina Sato, and Cole Miller. He has finished thirteen of his opponents including nine as the result of his significant striking ability.

PHOTO CREDIT – DREAM

According to the company, Aoki will compete in a “mixed rules” bout against K-1 fighter Yuichiro Nagashima. Though the specific format has not been explained as of yet, there has been discussion regarding the possibility of one round of Mixed Martial Arts followed by another using the K-1 kickboxing format.

Slated for MMA-specific action, legendary competitor Kazushi Sakuraba will face Marius Zaromskis in a bout with the Lithuanian striker’s DREAM Welterweight Championship on the line. The pairing marks Zaromskis’ return to the promotion where he made a name for himself last year after compiling three consecutive wins by way of headkick. He has since gone 0-2 in Strikeforce with a recent “No Contest” against Waachim Spiritwolf due to an accidental eye-poke.

Also returning to Japan after a stint in the United States, former UFC lightweight Caol Uno will make his 145-pound debut at “Dynamite: The Power of Courage 2010” against freestyle wrestler Kazuyuki Miyata. Miyata, who represented Japan in the 2000 Olympics, has won his last five bouts including a decision victory over Takeshi “Lion” Inoue at DREAM 16 this past September.

The six fighters join a New Year’s Eve line-up already featuring former Strikeforce lightweight champ Josh Thomson fighting 26-6-2 Tatsuya Kawajiri, as well as a featherweight title fight between Bibiano Fernandes and Hiroyuki Takaya (who originally fought to a split decision in the final of last year’s DREAM Featherweight Grand Prix).

The bout is not official but MMAJunkie.com has cited a source close to the fight who said it’s in the process of being finalized.

Stevenson is coming off an impressive performance over Nate Diaz in June. Stevenson dominated Diaz on the ground and picked up a much needed win. Before the victory over Diaz, Stevenson had lost three of his previous four fights.

Fisher most recently defeated UFC veteran Caol Uno for his third consecutive win in the organization. During his three-fight winning streak, Fisher has also defeated Shannon Gugerty and Jeremy Stephens.

Fisher has now won four of his past five fights and six of his past eight overall, which has put him back in contention for a lightweight title shot.

Should Stevenson emerge victorious, he too would once again throw his name back into the hat for a title shot down the road as well.

According to a new report on MMAjunkie.com, plans are in place for a match-up between former UFC lightweight contender Caol Uno and Miletich fighter Spencer Fisher. The event is to take place June 13 at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany.

Uno who sports a 27-11-4 record overall was 3-3-1 while fighting for the UFC from 2001-2003. He fought for the lightweight title on two separate occasions coming up short both times. He first fought for the title in 2001 losing a majority decision to Jens Pulver. He went on to win three of his next four fights earning another title opportunity against B.J. Penn. Pulver had the title stripped from him in a contract dispute. Uno and Penn fought at UFC 41 to a draw and the lightweight division was scrapped for the next three years.

Uno who has since moved on to the K-1 organization as well as DREAM last fought at Dream.5 losing to WAMMA lightweight champion Shinya Aoki. In a recent interview expressing interest in Japanese fighters UFC president Dana White mentioned Uno proclaiming his love for him and saying he always had a spot in the UFC.

Fisher who has won his last two fights after suffering a loss to Frankie Edgar is looking to throw his name into the list of contenders for Penn’s title. Fisher is 22-4 overall and 7-3 in the UFC including victories over Thiago Alves, Sam Stout and Jeremy Stephens. He hasn’t fought since UFC 90 in October and has been recovering from surgery on an undisclosed injury.

Earlier in the day, Adam Morgan was able to catch up with May and Spike TV was also kind enough to put 5 Oz. of Pain in contact with Zachrich.

I spoke with the former Division I wrestler about his loss last night to Daniel Cramer and while Zachrich was introspective about some of the reasons why he was defeated, he was unwilling to make excuses.

You can read the transcript of our conversation below.

Sam Caplan: On TV last night, they portrayed Daniel Cramer as a pretty boy. Was that an accurate feeling in the house, and do you think anyone took him lightly because he didn’t look like a traditional fighter?

Luke Zachrich: No, not really. It was more just one of those things that everyone in the house just joked with him about. When he got on the show we were told he used to work at a country club and that he’s from Connecticut. He’s got a degree in economics. He’s a very smart, talented kid. As far as how I was looking at things going into that fight, he obviously kicked the crap out of Jeremiah Riggs just to get in the house and I took nothing away from him. I didn’t want to look at him in a light where I thought it was going to be an easy fight because he’s obviously a lot tougher than he looks.

Sam Caplan: Can you talk about the process that went into picking Cramer as an opponent. Team Forrest had control and I realize they were flipping coins in regards to who would get to fight, but I am assuming you guys weren’t flipping coins when it came to picking opponents?

Luke Zachrich: At that point, there were very few competitors to choose from. And we were all looking at it as far as which fighter matches up better with the other fighters. There were a couple of different guys that we talked about fighting, Gerald Harris and C.B. Dollaway, both, because they are good wrestlers but I feel I have very good takedown defense, and my coaches saw that. But in Dan Cramer, he was basically just a jiu-jitsu guy — or so we were told, at least that what’s my coaches told me. The feeling was that it wouldn’t be possible for him to take me down and then I could out-strike him on our feet. We pretty much though that was a definite win for us, too.

Sam Caplan: So going into the show, you didn’t know much about him?

Luke Zachrich: You know what? Nobody really knew much about anybody, to tell you the truth. The only real exceptions were Tim (Credeur) and Dante (Rivera), guys who have been fighting for years and years and who are in the upper ranks of belt rankings for jiu-jitsu. As far as the preliminary fights to get into the house, a lot of us didn’t even see those all of those. I didn’t get to see a number of those fights. So I didn’t see Dan fight (and) I knew nothing about him personally. I just went off what my coaches told me.

Sam Caplan: The UFC has recently started to cut a lot of fighters that have been involved with TUF. Are you still under contract to the UFC?

Luke Zachrich: Currently, yes.

Sam Caplan: Have they talked to you at all about appearing on the finale?

Luke Zachrich: Yeah, I’ve heard talk but I haven’t been talked to about it. But I guess after Matt Riddle came out and said to everybody that he was fighting on the finale that they no longer wanted everybody talking about it.

Sam Caplan: You write an excellent blog for our friends at MMAjunkie.com. In this week’s writeup you talked about how Forrest’s practices were tough and some of the guys fighting flat because of it. You also mention in this week’s blog that you can’t believe how you got so tired at the end of the fight. Do you feel Forrest is at fault in any way?

Luke Zachrich: You know, I’m not going to blame Forrest for my loss. I’m not saying it was a part of the reason why I lost the fight, but I think it might have contributed to me tiring like I did. I’m one of those fighters that goes out there at 100 percent for the whole entire fight. I think it was a combination of Dan actually pushing me early and he came at me almost the whole entire fight. He had me backing up a lot of times. I think it was a combination of Dan pushing at such a high pace and him starting to get a couple shots on me while standing. I felt that once my limbs started going that my body started shutting down and I think that’s kind of how over-training came into play.

Sam Caplan: How do you get involved with doing a blog for Junkie?

Luke Zachrich: When I came back, the guys at American Fighter asked if I had been on opposite sides of C.B. (Dollaway) and I told them “yes” and next thing you know, I was blogging. They had it set up for me since the day I got home.

Sam Caplan: Do you read MMA websites and blogs on a regular basis?

Luke Zachrich: Before the show, no, I never really read too many people’s blogs. But now, since I’ve been a part of this, and a lot of the other guys are writing blogs out there for different websites, I’ve definitely been trying to read them all. I’m trying to get an insight into what everyone else was thinking because pretty much for the first four weeks everyone was sort of a closed book.

Sam Caplan: You mention how people were a closed book, and Matt Brown seemed to be one of those guys. On the show, he was portrayed as a man of action but few words. What do you think of his portrayal on the show thus far?

Luke Zacharich: The thing about Matt is that nothing he’s done that’s been shown has been an act. It’s not been edited (and) it’s not been shown in a better light for Matt. If anything they aren’t showing as much of everyone talking about what a tough guy Matt is. They are really downplaying it to a certain extent. I met Matt about two years ago. I wasn’t even a part of team Jorge Gurgel at that time. I was in Columbus a month or two between places. I had just left Dan Severn’s camp in Michigan. It was me, Dorian Price, and Matt Brown, and we were all training in this guy’s garage where Sean Salmon was training at the time. We were all in this tiny ass little garage with stuff hanging up on the walls and some mats on the floor. The first time I saw Matt you could tell what a tough kid he was right off the bat. He doesn’t care where and he doesn’t care who you are, he’s going to go hard no matter what. He’s a good person to have around you.

Sam Caplan: Being on the show isn’t a fun time for a lot of the fighters. What’s the first thing you did when you got back from the show?

Luke Zachrich: Nothing. I sat. The first three days at home, I didn’t want to deal with anything. I pretty much watched movies, watched TV, and I checked out a bunch of different stuff on the Internet. It was weird, but I really didn’t want to talk to anybody. It was kind of like I was de-socialized a little bit when I was there and I needed to get away from people for a little bit.