Author: Nick Caron

Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum from Dallas, Texas is in the books and the champion remained perfect in the newly-purchased Zuffa promotion with a victory in the quarterfinals of the Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament.

But despite a win over a consensus top-five opponent, many fans remained unimpressed with Overeem’s victory, citing that his performance was not as dominant as it should have been if he truly was one of the best heavyweights in the world, as many of his supporters have claimed.

“I came here to knock him out,” the Strikeforce heavyweight champion told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani. “I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t deliver on my promise and I apologize for that.”

“But you need two to tango.”

Overeem called Werdum the best grappler in the heavyweight division going into the fight, but hoped to keep the fight on the feet where he would have the advantage. He was able to do it, but Werdum repeatedly tried to take him to the ground.

“Looking back at the takedown attempts on me, I can only come to the conclusion that Fabricio didn’t want to fight in the standup with me at all and was just stalling the fight on the ground.”

After countless failed takedown attempts, the undersized Werdum took to just lying on his back on the canvas, looking up at a standing Overeem who refused to go to the ground with him. Overeem simply demanded that the fight be stood back up where the two could truly exchange and entertain the fans.

“When somebody’s challenging you, you want to respond to that challenge, especially when there’s a lot of fans watching,” he explained. “But on the other hand, I mean come on, you’re the one lying down all the time.”

It was a frustrating fight for many fans who were really expecting a heated battle between two fighters who were talking trash to one another leading up to Saturday night. But Werdum’s failed insistence on having the fight on the ground was a major deterrent in what otherwise may have been a very memorable fight card.

“He should be a little bit ashamed of his performance for not delivering to the fans at all,” Overeem declared. “He did engage in the standup fight, but not to knock me out at all. It was all based to setup a takedown and as soon as that didn’t work, he kept stalling the fight.”

Nevertheless, “Ubereem” walked away with a victory and will move on to fight Antonio “Big Foot” Silva in the semifinal round of the tournament.

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Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem returns to the cage for the first time in over a year this Saturday night when he faces Fabricio Werdum in the main event of the Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum fight card.

Though he has not fought in Strikeforce since May 2010 when he defeated fellow Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix fighter Brett Rogers, Overeem has been active over in Japan fighting for both the Dream and K-1 promotions.

“It was not my fault that it took over a year to come back. We tried to put together the fight against Werdum: the winner of the Fedor-Werdum fight,” he explained the situation to MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani. “Werdum was injured, needed surgery on his elbow.”

With Werdum unable to fight, Overeem and his camp looked to fight Fedor.

“Fedor declined to fight me for the second time. At that time, I decided to compete in the K1 [Grand Prix] because there were no fights for me in Strikeforce.

“I don’t know, I can’t say what’s going through their minds, but we tried to put together that fight.”

As he said, Overeem competed in and eventually won the K-1 kickboxing World Grand Prix tournament in December 2010. He also went on to defeat Todd Duffee to win the Dream interim heavyweight championship later that month.

With Zuffa having recently purchased Strikeforce, there has been increasing rumors that Overeem will eventually have to relinquish his K-1 title. But he claims that is not the case. At least not yet.

“My contract states that I can fight in other promotions” he stated. “Obviously that’s going to be a talking point in the negotiations, but we’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

Regardless of the contract situation, though, “The Reem” understands that this tournament is perhaps the most meaningful time in his career. Though his Strikeforce heavyweight championship will not be on the line, he believes that there may actually be added incentive for him in this tournament.

“I like the idea that there’s something new on the line. There is something for me. There’s the GP title,” he explained. “There is room for another belt.”

To become the Strikeforce Grand Prix champion, though, he will need to avenge a loss he previously had when he faces Fabricio Werdum in the first round of the tournament this Saturday night. When asked about the previous fight, which took place in May 2006, Overeem seemed almost unaffected by it.

“It’s one of these fights where you’re not entirely in shape. Or actually in bad shape going into the fight,” he confirmed. “Going into that fight, I just had surgery. The surgery had a big impact on my body, on my conditioning.”

Nevertheless, the champion does want to redeem that loss.

“It was one of those fights that kept nagging me and I’ve been wanting this rematch for a very long time,” he continued. “I think Fabricio has perfected himself to be the best grappler in MMA and I think I’ve perfected myself to be the best striker in MMA.”

But despite being known as one of the best strikers in the sport and holding numerous titles, there are still critics who doubt him as a top five or even top 10 fighter. Though he doesn’t agree with that sentiment, Overeem does understand where his critics are coming from.

“I understand it very well,” he admitted. “You could say Alistair is not top 10 or top 5 because he has not fought this guy and that guy, but I think where the fans get their motivation is that I did fight a lot, I did have a lot of knockouts or submissions. I am the only fighter to hold a major MMA belt as well as the K1 organization. Nobody has ever done that before.

“The only way to find out is for those fights to happen. Now that Zuffa has fought Strikeforce, it’s one step closer.”

Be sure to continue checking Bleacher Report for all of the up-to-the-minute Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum fight card Predictions, News, Results, Play-by-Play, and Reactions.

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