Alistair Overeem is a dividing character among the fight sports community. Dana White calls him “a K-1 guy”. Chael Sonnen said he’s not really an MMA fighter. On the kick-boxing circuit, he’s considered an MMA representative.
While being classed as a pure stand-up fighter, his MMA record has 19 submission wins – five more than his 14 knockout wins. Whatever the discipline, Alistair Overeem is one of the best heavyweight fighters on the planet.
By Fergus Ryan
As we enter 2011, Overeem is the Strikeforce and interim Dream MMA heavyweight champion and the K-1 kick-boxing heavyweight champion. He’s the first fighter to actively hold heavyweight belts across multiple disciplines and promotions. He has become a staple in some MMA heavyweight top 10s and this could be the year the UFC comes calling.
Yet despite his achievements to date, Overeem lacks credibility in the MMA community in the US. Some of the charges against him are that he’s really only a kick-boxer, he hasn’t fought anyone decent and that his muscle mass may not be organic.
He does have some history with kick-boxing and his pro-fight career started with a kick-boxing bout in 1997. However, in the first three years of his MMA career, he took his record to 13-3 compared to his 2-1 record in kick-boxing, which should have cemented his status early as an MMA fighter.
He dedicated himself to training and looked to follow his training partners, MMA pioneer Bas Rutten and brother Valentjn (who had 12 MMA fights by the time Alistair made his debut), to the big promotions at the time in Japan.
After cleaning out the European MMA scene at light-heavyweight, Overeem began fighting in Japan for the now defunct RINGS and Pride Fighting Championship promotions. It was here that Overeem fought some of the biggest names in the game.
Overeem bringing the hammer down:
The pinnacle of this phase of his career was the third place he took in the Pride light-heavyweight Grand Prix tournament, beaten by eventual winner Shogun Rua in the semi-final. In his 34-11 record (and one No Contest against Cro Cop) he holds victories over Igor Vovchanchyn, Vitor Belfort (twice) and most recently UFC cast off Todd Duffee. It’s his losses column that really show the calibre of competition he faced as the likes of Liddell, Rua, (Little) Nogueira and the Fedor slayer Fabricio Werdum hold victories over him.
Though he’s been considered sporadic in his MMA career of late, Overeem is now riding a nine fight winning streak and has fought 13 times since 2007. The average UFC champion defends twice, three times maximum a year.
Questions over the quality of competition is something that can be levelled at almost every MMA heavyweight champion as the division has historically been shallow compared to other weight classes.
What clouds his status as an MMA fighter is his continued activity as a kick-boxer. Overeem has notched up an 8-2 record in the K-1 promotion over the last three years. After knocking out K-1 bad boy Badr Hari in December 2008, he fought in the 2009 K-1 championship in the wild card slot as voted for by the fans. He also donned the big gloves in a bid to remain active while rehabbing a fist injury. Having lost to Hari in the semis, he vowed to return and win, which he did in the recent 2010 K-1 Finals.
Stringy
At six foot five inches, Overeem was a tall but stringy light heavyweight. A series of losses in the division, albeit to quality opposition, made him rethink the arduous weight cut he inflicted on himself to get down to the 205 pound limit. Cutting weight is a balancing act between energy-sapping dehydration and subsequent rehydration to regain a size advantage come fight time.
Overeem had enough of cuts and began pumping iron and eating horse meat in 2007 to become a heavyweight proper. While you can see his muscle mass gradually increase over the years, it hasn’t stopped critics wondering if the increase has been chemically enhanced.
Though he’s big, he’s not beyond the realm of reasonable proportions. He is about the same size and weight as the Irish rugby union front rower John ‘The Bull’ Hayes but would be among the smaller second rows playing international rugby. He’s also the same weight but two inches taller than frequent steroid usage denier Brock Lesnar.
With Strikeforce not making up any ground on the UFC and Japanese MMA still in mourning after the collapse of Pride, Alistair Overeem may run out of credible opponents in defending his belts. Dana White may come calling in the same manner he lured Jake Shields as Overeem provides the only creditable heavy weight threat to Cain Velsaquez outside the UFC. In 2011, Overeem could be a couple of wins away from getting the credit he deserves stateside.
