The upcoming Pride 31 “Dreamers” event will feature a interesting matchup between Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs Mark “The Hammer” Coleman.

Shogun is one of the rising stars in MMA and Pride right now and currently is the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix Champion. His last four wins include knockouts over Rampage Jackson, Alistair Overeem, and Ricardo Arona and a decision victory over Minitoro Nogueria. Impressive victories to say the least. However, since Shogun’s Chute Boxe teammate Wanderlei Silva has held the Pride Middleweight belt since March of 2001, there was some question whether or not Rua would change divisions to avoid a matchup with Silva. Well, he has and now he is with the Heavyweights and the same division as the most feared MMA fighter alive today, Fedor Emelianenko.

Mark Coleman is a storied MMA veteran of both the UFC and Pride. Coleman has lost 3 of his last 5 fights in Pride, but look who they were too. A submission loss to Fedor (who he seemed to be controlling up to that point), a submission loss to Minitoro and a KO loss against Mirko Cro-Cop. Those are three of the top heavyweights in the world right now, if not the top three.

While many people are predicting that Shogun will easily handle Coleman, I’m not quite so sure. First of all, Shogun is moving up weightclasses and Coleman is a big man. Shogun will have the speed advantage on him, but Coleman has the better ground game. Also, Cro-Cop was the only one who has been able to stop Coleman’s takedown attempts. I think the Hammer will be able to shoot in early and take down Shogun and try to lay on him and pound him out. I think that if they stand toe-to-toe Shogun has an advantage because of his speed. Also, Coleman needs to keep active on the ground and not just lay on Shogun, or the Pride judges will stand them up very quickly.

Overall, it should be a very entertaining fight, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Coleman beats the 2005 fighter of the year. And if that happens, what is Pride’s next move? If he loses to Coleman, he’s not in line to fight Fedor. And if Coleman beat him, Fedor would destroy him anyways. It will be very interesting.