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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Visa issues have forced one-time UFC lightweight Willamy "Chiquerim" Freire from his scheduled bout with Shinya Aoki this month at DREAM 17 in Japan, and according to a report from Sherdog.com, former WEC Lightweight Champion Jamie Varner has been tapped as his replacement.
Longtime MFC Champion and one-time UFC competitor Antonio McKee was in talks to take the bout as well, but the promotion went with Varner instead for the May 29 event, coming from the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
Varner has been out of action since a submission loss to Shane Roller at the final WEC event in December. The loss made Varner winless in his last four fights, and led to Zuffa releasing him as they merged the WEC into the UFC.
Aoki, on the other hand, has won four straight MMA fights since his last MMA loss to Gilbert Melendez last April, most recently returning to Strikeforce this April and submitting Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm in the first round on Showtime. The only other notch against him in that time was a knockout loss to kickboxer Yuichiro "Jienotsu" Nagashima in an extremely odd mixed rules bout on New Year's Eve.
DREAM 17 features the quarterfinals of DREAM's bantamweight grand prix, along with bouts featuring notables Caol Uno and Joachim Hansen.
Penick's Analysis: This is a huge opportunity for Varner, but it's a very bad stylistic matchup for him. His top game will be absolutely negated by the fantastic submission game of Aoki, and he's been very susceptible to submissions recently. A win would be absolutely monumental for him, but on short notice against a fighter of Aoki's level I don't know how successful he can be in this fight. But this is a great replacement fight for Aoki against a decent name in Varner.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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