Shinya Aoki vs. Joachim Hansen Video: Dream Sells This Fight Right

This is how you sell a fight:



That's the video Dream is using to promote Tuesday's Dream 11 lightweight title fight between champion Joachim Hansen and challenger Shinya Aoki, and I think it does a masterful job of telling fans why this fight is a big one.

Hansen is a striker who has knockout power in his hands -- and some of the most dangerous knees of any fighter anywhere. Aoki is one of the most creative submission artists in all of MMA. The early part of the video does a nice job showing the strengths of those fighters.

And then we get to the past bad blood between Aoki and Hansen, who have fought twice before. Aoki submitted Hansen with a gogoplata at Pride Shockwave 2006, and Hansen finished Aoki with a series of punches at Dream 5 last year. Dream shows the fans highlights of both (although the UFC owns the Pride footage, so the "highlights" from that one are really a series of still photos) to hype up the rubber match.

Overall, I'd say this is one of the most effective uses of YouTube I've seen to promote a fight. I hope the fight is as good as the video.