The No. 1 contender for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, Alistair Overeem, dropped by XX 1090 in San Diego with Scott and B/R today and said, among other things, that he is better than UFC Heavyweight Champ Junior Dos Santos, and Brock Lesnar is a one-dimensional fighter.
So what does he think of the man he just defeated by knockout, Brock Lesnar?
I respect Brock for what he did. Great for the sport, great for the UFC, and I mean, he came in there with minimum experience and he took on the strongest heavyweights in the world and he beat them and he became champion. That is something that I think earns respect and admiration. He pulled it off. Now it’s come a time where his game needed to be upgraded, and he didn’t upgrade it in time. Then you’re going to fall to other fighters because the sport is always adapting and always changing.
Tough to argue with that assessment from Overeem. Lesnar was a monster and a world-class wrestler, but never developed much of a striking game and could not take a punch to the face without turtling up.
Overeem added:
(Brock Lesnar) is what I call one-dimensional, but a very good one-dimensional. I think he’s like 275 pounds of mass coming at you with violence, taking you down and doing his thing, so he was really good at what he did, but the problem with him is if you’re too one-dimensional, people are really clever and catch up because there are certain ways to beat certain opponents. That’s one of my strengths. I always change, I always adapt, I always improve.
Overeem is still pretty complimentary of Lesnar, even after their fight, where Brock looked like he had one foot out the retirement door already. Defeating Brock Lesnar earned Overeem a title shot against UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior Dos Santos. A date has yet to be set for the fight, but Overeem thinks it will happen “sooner rather than later.” The fight promises to be a stand-up war, with Overeem and Dos Santos arguably the two best strikers in the UFC’s Heavyweight division.
Overeem is confident he will be victorious:
There’s different ways to beat Dos Santos. Basically, the way I see it is I’m bigger, I’m more experienced, I’m better, better in the stand-up, better on the ground, and obviously, he’s a very dangerous opponent, but there’s so many ways to beat him. I still have to sit down and study him a little bit, but anything is possible with him.
Overeem is bigger, but time will tell if he is better. Sooner rather than later.
This article is from the Hair of the Dog Sports Blog. Follow me on Twitter @coldy4goldy.
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