Alistair who? If you've been a casual fan and only watched UFC events, you've likely never heard of Alistair Overeem. With his matchup against Brock Lesnar looming closer and closer and due to Brock's popularity within the WWE and UFC, it may be easy for you to dismiss Alistair's chances of winning, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Allow me to explain who Alistair is and why we should all be absolutely excited as all hell that he's making his way to the UFC. Alistair spent most of his MMA career fighting in the 205 lb. Light Heavyweight division fighting for a Dutch kickboxing team known as Golden Glory. Golden Glory has managed or trained notable Kickboxing and MMA fighters such as Semmy Schilt, Gegard Mousasi, Gokhan Saki, Errol Zimmerman, Marloes Coenen, and Sergei Kharitonov who was the last man to beat Alistair Overeem in MMA.
Early MMA Career
After going 4-3 early in his MMA career, Alistair then went on a twelve fight win streak before entering Pride Fighting Championships "Total Elimination" tournament in 2003. He fought in Pride's Middleweight Grand Prix. (In PrideFC, the 205 lb. division was called their "Middleweight" division, don't let it fool you) At the time, PrideFC and the UFC were just beginning their very heated rivalry. PrideFC's president, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, and UFC president Dana White would publicly discuss how their fighters were better than each others.
To prove the point, Sakakibara challenged Dana White to send one of his fighters over to Japan to compete in the 2003 Total Elimination tournament. Dana accepted, and in the Quarterfinal matchups, PrideFC's Alistair Overeem fought the UFC's Chuck Liddell. Liddell would ultimately prove the winner of this matchup but the exciting fight made an impression on MMA fans everywhere.
From Obscurity to PrideFC Notable
Despite his loss to Liddell, Overeem won another couple of fights outside of Pride before returning to Pride and winning a fight against Hiromitsu Kanehara. After the Kanehara fight, Pride would begin matching Overeem up with everyone they had in the 205 lb. division except for Wanderlei Silva. Overeem would spend the next three years from Heavyweight to Light Heavyweight fighting people like, Antonio "Lil' Nog" Nogueira, Igor Vovchanchyn, Vitor Belfort, Ricardo Arona, Fabricio Werdum, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, and Sergei Kharitonov. He'd win some and lose some, ultimately PrideFC would fold and Overeem would end his Pride career on a 3-fight skid losing to Lil' Nog, Ricardo Arona, and Shogun Rua in his last three Pride fights.
It was at this time that Overeem became known to MMA fans as "the best first round fighter you're likely to see" as most of his fights never went passed the first or second round. He was known for gassing out after the first, but usually winning the first round unless he was stopped.
Full Time Heavyweight
After PrideFC folded shop and was sold to the UFC in 2007, Overeem decided to move to Heavyweight full time. At the time, his mother was battling a form of cancer, Overeem owned and ran a Dutch Newspaper company, and felt that cutting weight in the midst of all that was going on and not being able to focus on MMA was ruining his career.
Overeem would re-focus his career as a full time Heavyweight and took an MMA Rules fight at a K-1 event against Michael Knaap who he would defeat by Guillotine Choke in the first. Overeem would then lose against dangerous Russian striker Sergei Kharitonov by KO in the first round.
A Man Reinvented
After his loss to Kharitonov, Overeem was picked up by Scott Coker's MMA organization known as Strikeforce. Coker matched Overeem against UFC veteran Paul "the Headhunter" Buentello for the vacant Strikeforce Heavyweight belt. Overeem would smash Buentello in the second and win using the Thai Clinch and kneeing Buentello in the gut repeatedly and become Strikeforce's first, and so far only, Heavyweight Champion.
From PrideFC's demise, some of the executives paired up with Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG) to create a new Japanese MMA organization known as Dream. FEG, which also owns K-1 (the most notable kickboxing organization in the world right now), hoped to use their new organization Dream to recapture some of PrideFC's nostalgia and look to regain some MMA fanaticism in Japan.
What better way to try and accomplish that then by re-employing many of the PrideFC fighters that made Pride so great? Kazushi Sakuraba, Hayato Sakurai, Ikuhisa Minowa, Bob Sapp, Alistair Overeem, and many others began fighting for Dream. Overeem grabbed another couple of wins, one against K-1 legend Mark Hunt.
The Evolution Continues
After his win over Mark Hunt at Dream 5, and working closely with Dream's parent company FEG who also owns K-1, it wasn't long before Overeem turned his attention to K-1. This new attention came in the form of one K-1 Kickboxer in particular, a fighter named Badr Hari. Hari had just come from a controversial loss in K-1 to another K-1 legend, Remy Bonjasky. Despite dominating Bonjasky the first round, Hari would lose his chance at winning the Grand Prix by illegally kicking Bonjasky in the face while Bonjasky was on the ground. Hari is considered the "bad boy" of K-1, and although extremely skilled in fighting, seems to have issue with keeping his emotions in check and is very impulsive in fights.
Badr Hari contested that MMA wasn't a big deal, and that Overeem himself (who had a small Kickboxing record) wouldn't be able to hang in K-1. Overeem flashed back by saying Hari was running his mouth about a sport he knew nothing about. Eventually Overeem threw down the challenge gauntlet. "I'll fight you in a K-1 bout if you fight me in an MMA fight afterward", Overeem would tell Hari.
Hari agreed to the stipulation, and Overeem and Hari met in FEG's "Dynamite!! 2008" event where Overeem knocked Hari out cold in 2:07 of the first round. Weeks afterward, Overeem would again challenge Hari to an MMA fight as was agreed upon, but Hari refused to uphold his end of the bargain and said that he wouldn't fight Overeem in an MMA event.
The bad blood between the two persisted but it sparked a renewed interest in K-1 for Overeem who lost his next K-1 fight against Remy Bonjasky. Overeem was then asked to compete in the 2009 K-1 World Grand Prix. He would win the qualifier fight against another K-1 legend Peter Aerts and his Quarterfinal fight against Ewerton Teixeira which ended in a brutal, brutal KO by knee.
This would set up the rematch in the Semifinal that everyone couldn't wait to see. Badr Hari and Overeem in the 2009 Grand Prix Semifinals. Hari would finally get the better of Overeem who just couldn't get Hari's timing down before Hari would knock Overeem down twice in the first round forcing a referee stoppage. Though it's listed as a "KO" win, Overeem was never knocked out like Hari had been in their first meeting.
This loss, however, sparked a fire within Overeem who decided that he needed to not only be an MMA champion but also a K-1 champion as well.
A Champion Realized and a Return to Strikeforce
During his stint in K-1 in 2008-2009, Overeem was also active in MMA. He fought Mirko CroCop receiving his first No Contest, and won fights against James Thompson, Tony Sylvester, Gary Goodridge, and another brutal KO by knee against massive Japanese fighter Kazuyuki Fujita in FEG's "Dynamite!! 2009" show.
It was at this time that Overeem was becoming well known among MMA fans as having one of the nastiest knee strikes in the fighting game. So well known in fact, that fans began calling it the "Uberknee" and claiming that even if you blocked an "Uberknee", you were still hurt. Also at this time, Overeem began receiving a ton of nasty comments about his lack of fighting in Strikeforce and not defending his Strikeforce HW belt.
Coker would come to Overeem's defense and explain that even though Overeem hadn't defended the belt once in three years, it was because Coker had no one for Overeem to fight during that time. However, that would change as Brett Rogers because Overeem's first title contender after Rogers had gotten his first professional loss to Fedor Emelianenko.
Coker would then receive criticism for giving Rogers a chance at the belt after losing to Fedor. But it's not like Fedor would have accepted a fight against Overeem. But that's another story, for another time. I could probably fill two blog entries with the drama between Overeem and Fedor.
Overeem would manhandle Rogers in the first round and win by TKO. Afterwards, Overeem claimed he would focus a lot more on MMA. Despite his promise, Overeem was expected to fight Fedor Emelianenko for his next title defense. When those plans fell through, Overeem returned to K-1 and entered the 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix. This time, however, Overeem would win the entire event.
Now Overeem would hold the Strikeforce HW belt, and a K-1 WGP Championship as well. In his speech after winning the World Grand Prix Overeem stated that he wanted FEG to include him in the "Dynamite!! 2010" show which was less than half a month away AND that he wanted FEG to make it a title fight as well.
Less than twenty days later, Overeem would get his wish, sort of. Dream would match Overeem up against ex-UFC fighter Todd Duffee in a bout that would serve as the Interim HW Championship. After eating a few "Uberknees" to the solarplexus in the very first 10 seconds of the first round, Overeem would drop Duffee with a left hook that put him on the mat. The referee would step in at 19 seconds of the first round and Overeem realized his goal of holding two MMA belts and a K-1 championship at the same time.
Overeem's next important milestone would come when would enter the first ever Strikeforce HW Grand Prix tournament. Overeem's first opponent would be against a man who beat him years ago in Pride, Fabricio Werdum. The fight would become an absolute mockery of combat sports. While Overeem circled and looked for the knockout punch, Werdum would simply fall to his back and beg Overeem to come to the ground with him. It was an absolute joke, and probably one of the worst fights I had seen since Anderson Silva took on Demian Maia. Overeem emerged the victor, however, and avenged his earlier loss to Werdum.
Overeem's UFC Future
So here we have it. You have an understanding for who Overeem is a little better, I hope. And now you can see why I am so excited to have Overeem face Brock Lesnar as his first UFC debut. There are some things I think are really important about the skill sets both bring to the table in this matchup.
Although Overeem is famous for his Uberknee and his K-1 striking, his BJJ seems to be overlooked and underrated these days. Most of Overeem's wins have come via submission, and I think people tend to forget that. However, Overeem's wrestling defense as far as I know has never been stellar and even though he's faced a few wrestlers before, they've never really pushed the wrestling aspect on Overeem or tried to use it on him.
Lesnar, on the other hand, is steeped in wrestling. Many detractors would say Lesnar is a one-dimensional fighter relying only on wrestling. Certainly it's true that Lesnar's background is in wrestling, but what is also important is that Lesnar has been getting better and better at other aspects as well. He's knocked down a few opponents while standing up, and he even showed off some BJJ skills when he submitted Shane Carwin in the second round by arm triangle.
Lesnar will be the first person to face Overeem who will probably use his NCAA Division 1 wrestling pedigree almost exclusively. Overeem tends to overwhelm his opponents with his plodding massive size, but Lesnar is just as big if not bigger looking than Overeem so this will be an interesting matchup to see how Overeem can deal with Lesnar's explosive wrestling.
Overeem is definitely one of my favorite fighters and I believe he can tool Lesnar in every department, except wrestling. Unfortunately, in the UFC where wrestlers and take downs seem to be counted heavier than any other aspect of MMA, I think Overeem will have to rely on his BJJ and work off his back because I don't think Overeem will be able to stop Lesnar's take downs.
It will be a super fight that will answer whether or not Alistair Overeem truly deserves to be ranked as a top 5 HW fighter as he is now or does Overeem need to evolve further and work on defensive wrestling in order to reach that next goal of his....... to become UFC champion.
--Andy
