Tatsuya Kawajiri to Face Michihiro Omigawa at DREAM 18 / GLORY 4 on New Year's Eve

The special New Year's Eve DREAM mixed martial arts (MMA) extravaganza continues to take shape, this time adding a featherweight clash between Tatsuya Kawajiri and Michihiro Omigawa on Dec. 31 in Japan.

By James Goyder@JamesGoyder Dec 13, 2012, 2:28pm EST

Tatsuya Kawajiri's opponent on the New Year's Eve DREAM 18 / GLORY 4 card was revealed today as being recently released UFC fighter Michihiro Omigawa in what will be an all-Japanese featherweight clash. It will be the first fight for 'The Crusher' since defeating Donald Sanchez at ONE FC: 'Rise of Kings' in March.

Omigawa signed with UFC in 2011 on the back of a five fight winning streak which had seen him register wins over Hatsu Hioki and Cole Escovedo. It was his second spell in the UFC but ended in ignominy as he was cut for the second time, leaving him with a record inside the Octagon of 1-6.

Kawajiri is one of the top featherweights in the world and has an outstanding record of 31-7-2 with his only recent losses coming at the hands of Gilbert Melendez, Shinya Aoki and Eddie Alvarez. Omigawa's record dropped to 13-12-1 after his disappointing second UFC spell.

Omigawa, 36, is a decorated Judoka who holds a third degree black belt. Kawaijri is two years the younger and is the former Shooto welterweight Champion and PRIDE Lightweight Grand Prix semifinalist and DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix semifinalist.

Two more fights were also recently added to the GLORY 4 portion of the card with Robin van Roosmalen set to take on Yuichiro Nagashim and Jerome Le Banner up against Koichi Pettas in kickboxing match-ups.

At present the card looks like this:

DREAM 18 / GLORY 4, Saitama Super Arena, December 31st, 2012

DREAM FIGHTS

Shinya Aoki vs Antonio Mckee

Bibiano Fernandes vs Yoshiro Maeda

Melvin Manhoef vs Denis Kang

Phil Baroni vs Hayato Sakurai

Bibiano Fernandes vs Yoshiro Maeda

Tatsuya Kawajiri vs Michihiro Omigawa

Hiroyuki Takaya vs Georgi Karakhanyan

Satoru Kitaoka vs Will Brooks

GLORY Grand Slam Tournament: