Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem didn’t take long to reply to the recent request by M-1 and Fedor Emelianenko for a matchup between the two. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen any time soon, as Overeem is leaning towards a K-1 fight in October, and even after that doesn’t seem to have any interest in Fedor until he faces Fabricio Werdum. MMAFighting had the quotes:
No, unfortunately not. The reason is because if I enter the Final 16 and win, I will fight the K-1 Final in December. My decision was made because nothing was certain and Strikeforce and M-1 didn’t act fast enough when I made my decision to start K-1 training. Now I read on the internet that Fedor and his management want to fight me all of sudden. Do they really need two months of thinking and negotiating? I think it’s a little strange to be honest. If Fedor challenged me right after the fight it would have been something to take in consideration, but the M-1 management started to say that all the polls on several websites stated that people rather have a Fedor vs. Werdum rematch then a fight against me. There we have another lie by M-1 because every poll I have read stated the opposite and showed that everybody want to see Fedor versus me. Check their current poll at their own Web site (laughs).
Fans have been waiting for this matchup for some time, and it looks like were going to be waiting for a while still. Overeem vs. Fedor is certainly the most compelling heavyweight matchup outside of the UFC, and Strikeforce has got to be wanting this one as well as it would be great for ratings. Looks like it’ll be 2011 before the two lock horns, which seems like a long time away but there’s not much that can be done about it.