Tim Sylvia will Take on Jerome Le Banner in a Pro-Wrestling Match for ‘DREAM: New Year! 2011’

As speculated, DREAM has signed a pro-wrestling match-up between former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Tim Sylvia to take on French K-1 Boxer, Jerome Le Banner for DREAM’s NYE show. Saturday’s NYE show will be an eclectic 16 match card that will consist of pro-wrestling matches, Kickboxing bouts and of course Mixed Martial Arts.

Sylvia was originally slated to face off against former Strikeforce Heavyweight, Brett Rogers, in a MMA bout but Rogers encountered issues obtaining a visa to square off against Sylvia.

While the match is being called a pro-wrestling match I would not expect to see any running of the ropes or high back body drops. Sylvia’s other known pro-wrestling experience came in September 2011 he took on Josh Barnett for Japan pro-wrestling group, Inoki Genome Federation. IGF will also be responsible for supervising the pro-wrestling matches on the DREAM NYE show.

Le Banner has also been active in pro-wrestling since this year wrestling for the IGF and posses a 5-0 record in his pro-wrestling bouts. While the wins are pre-deteremined the does show how much support he has gotten from the IGF. I would expect Sylvia to have his shoulders on the mat so Le Banner can still keep the streak alive.

These videos below should be a good indicator of what we should expect on NYE:

“DREAM: New Year! 2011” lineup:

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii
Ryo Chonan vs. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai
Champ Shinya Aoki vs. Satoru Kitaoka (for lightweight title)
Yuichiro Nagashima vs. Katsunori Kikuno (mixed-rules bout)
Champ Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Takeshi “Lion” Inoue (for featherweight title)
Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Kazuyuki Miyata
Rodolfo Marques Diniz vs. Bibiano Fernandes (bantamweight grand-prix semifinal)
Antonio Banuelos vs. Masakazu Imanari (bantamweight grand-prix semifinal)
Hideo Tokoro vs. Yusup Saadulaev (bantamweight grand-prix reserve match)
Karla Benitez vs. Megumi Fujii
Yuta Kubo vs. Nils Widlund (kickboxing match)
Masaaki Noiri vs. Kengo Sonoda (kickboxing match)
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Peter Aerts (pro-wrestling match)
Atsushi Sawada and Shinichi Suzukawa vs. Kazushi Sakuraba and Katsuyori Shibata (pro-wrestling match)
Josh Barnett vs. Hideki Suzuki (pro-wrestling match)
Jerome Le Banner vs. Tim Sylvia (pro-wrestling match)