Kid Nate over at BloodyElbow.com wrote a small piece outlining the recent news from Sherdog.com's Jordan Breen regarding DREAM being dropped from their network primetime slot. While the view from his article is grim, I'd like to point out some of the things that weren't mentioned and may end up having some impact at least for those of us who love the stable of fighters that DREAM has managed to put together.

Am I refuting the fact that DREAM is over? No, not at all. In fact, losing their network primetime slot is a deadly blow for revenues when it comes to television advertising and as Breen mentioned in his article, PPV isn't big in Japan as it can be in the United States.

There is one point that Jordan Breen brought up that may score a small victory for hardcore fans for the time being. Pay-per-view only cards will be featured in full length instead of the fully edited versions of the cards that we've seen on the primetime network slot. Also, Daisuke Sato has returned to the promotion to hopefully pump up the pre-fight promotional material for DREAM. PRIDE entrances may have finally returned.

How can DREAM overcome a demise after losing a primetime TV slot and the attached advertising revenue? It'll be tough, but the quality of fights could potentially increase PPV buys slightly. One idea that hasn't been done yet is porting the event to an American fanbase. Although the buys would be low, which may be exactly why it will never happen, hardcore fans would likely buy the card. A more realistic scenario would be using HDNet in some way to increase viewership.

Coupling SkyPerfect with HDNet is far from getting them back on track, but the epic matchups in the middleweight tournament and the lightweight Grand Prix are just too good to leave behind. If DREAM truly does go down, WVR may end up picking up some of these fights or the American MMA market may once again start actively pursuing those fighters. I'd love to see the latter happen, but for now, many hardcore MMA fans could be crying in their beers in a few months time.

There is still hope for the GP Finals to make the primetime slot however, so hopefully it'll make a resurgence with some exciting fights in the upcoming events.