Alistair Overeem wants a fight with Junior dos Santos, and he’s willing to wait to get it.
According to a report from MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight, Overeem (39-14, 1 NC) was briefly under consideration to fight on Sept. 5 at UFC 191, but after talks fell through, he has resolved to sit out and wait for dos Santos.
The hard-hitting Brazilian is currently sidelined by the dual knee and nose surgeries he underwent following his Dec. 2014 win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FOX 13. He is targeting a return to action later this year, and it looks like Overeem may be there to greet him.
Of course, it won’t be the first time. The two heavyweights have been linked together for several years now, beginning in 2012 when Overeem was slated to challenge for dos Santos’ UFC championship. A rivalry between the duo grew quickly, however the match-up sunk when Overeem popped positive for elevated levels of testosterone in a pre-fight drug test.
The two adversaries largely went their separate ways following the incident. Dos Santos defeated Frank Mir in a replacement bout then dropped his title in a pair of harrowing losses to Cain Velasquez, before rebounding to defeat Miocic in yet another grisly back-and-forth fight. Overeem, meanwhile, served a nine-month suspension only to be knocked out in three of his first four fights back.
Overeem ultimately picked up the pieces to score the first two-fight win streak of his UFC career, but still, neither heavyweight was assumed to be in true title contention until Fabricio Werdum’s victory over Velasquez at UFC 188 dramatically shifted the landscape of the division.
Now both dos Santos and Overeem are in prime title position, particularly because they are the only two men to defeat Werdum since 2008.
The heat in the dos Santos-Overeem rivalry also remains strong, as is evidenced by dos Santos’ recent conversations with MMAFighting.com where he dismissed Overeem as “a better talker than a fighter” and appeared baffled by the continual questions he faces about the Dutchman. In all, there’s been no shortage of back-and-forth chatter between the two heavyweights, and if Overeem gets his wish, both may get a chance to replace those words with haymakers by the end of the year.