American MMA Ignorance is Bliss in Regards to Alistair Overeem

by Dave Walsh on Oct 19, 2009 12:59 PM EDT Comment 3 comments

The overwhelming outrage over Alistair Overeem not defending a rather meaningless title against meaningless opponents in the United States has to stop. Until we get Overeem vs. Fedor scheduled in Strikeforce, the outrage needs to end. As we've covered in the past linking to interviews with Alistair and interviewing his manager Bas Boon, Alistair was injured, but recovered by September and Strikeforce has not offered him a fight since, but he will fight for them in 2010.

Steve Cofield, the much maligned, insulted and berated Yahoo! Sports MMA blogger is at it again, this time calling for Alistair Overeem to be stripped of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship. Why? Because he fought against a far lesser opponent on a show for his gym, which he can attribute a lot of his recent success to. I'm not a Cofield hater, but his clear lack of knowledge of the fight scene outside of the United States is rather sad.

When is Strikeforce going to pull the plug on this Alistair Overeem sham? It did so quietly with its middleweight belt held by Cung Le. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced that Le would be back at some point but now the belt has been stripped. He needs to do the same with his heavyweight strap especially after watching Overeem face a nobody in Tony Sylvester in something called Ultimate Glory 11 in Holland last night.

UPDATE: BloodyElbow's Mike Fagan has weighed in on this topic and pretty much nails it with "why should we care?"

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People’s dissatisfaction with Overeem not fighting in Strikeforce has less to do with Overeem not fighting and more to do with people wanting to put down anything non-Zuffa.

by whomever on Oct 19, 2009 10:56 PM EDT reply actions

I do kinda feel like there are people that don’t know what to think about competition. I know when it comes to Overeem its “ROIDS!” followed by “DUCKING COMPETITION!”

Instead of “INJURY!” and “NOT OFFERED MORE FIGHTS!”

by Dave on Oct 19, 2009 11:52 PM EDT reply actions

The big fights for him are in K1 right now. Strikeforce don’t even want him fighting Fedor until he’s been sold to the American audience.

The only issue is selling Overeem to America. I think the Dream partnership will allow them to use K1 footage and I suspect it’ll be full of goodies after the GP.

Also he’s big and fighting in Japan which means he’s on steroids according to every dimwit with a keyboard.

by omigawda on Oct 22, 2009 3:39 AM EDT reply actions