Filed under: Strikeforce, K1, News
During a conversation with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s episode of “The MMA Hour,” Alistair Overeem did his best to clear up the confusion surrounding his decision not to participate in a bout against Ricco Rodriguez at Dream.15.
To hear Overeem tell it, it wasn’t simply a case of him not wanting to take the risk, as Rodriguez suggested. Instead, miscommunication about whether the scrap would be a title fight was mostly to blame, he said. That, combined with fatigue from a busy year for the Strikeforce heavyweight champ and some flagging motivation at the thought of facing an unranked opponent with no hardware at stake, prompted him to pull out of the fight well in advance.