Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem (33-11) says was tired of waiting for the Strikeforce organization to book his next fight. Instead of waiting for them to book a fight he decided to go to Japan and compete in K-1’s kickboxing tournament.
Overeem had been looking forward to defending his Strikeforce title against the winner of last summers Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum bout, even flying out at the last minute to greet the winner.
Werdum would pull off the upset but would not commit to an Overeem bout, opting to have elbow surgery instead. A possible match with Fedor could have been booked but the Russian wanted an immediate rematch with Werdum instead.
Overeem will now participate on the Dec. 11 K-1 World Grand Prix Final event in Japan after winning his initial opening bout. He earned a TKO win over Australian Ben Edwards at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 in Seoul Final 16 event.
The latest the Dutch fighter could return to mixed martial arts might be the Dynamite!!! New Years Eve event in Japan, but that leaves him only a few short weeks to prepare for an opponent.
As for a return to Strikeforce, Overeem doesn’t plan on making his return till mid-late Spring.
“I will be ready for Strikeforce as soon as I would say April, May, June…I already fought Brett [Rogers] coming out of a loss to Fedor. People gave me a lot of [expletive] for that. ‘Yeah, you’re a fighting a guy who lost, this and that.’ I’m not interested in doing that anymore. Let’s stick to some sort of ranking and that rankings tell me Werdum beat Fedor. Now, in my opinion, Werdum is No. 2 and Fedor is No. 3, I would say [Antonio “Bigfoot”] Silva is No. 4…. I have not loss my patience because the thing is I’m just going to do K-1. I’m not going to sit there and wait until somebody wants to fight me. I went to States to challenge people openly and I’m getting a no from Werdum and I’m getting a no from Fedor.”
Overeem was a guest on The MMA Hour over at MMAFighting.com, check out the full episode once it’s posted which should be today or tomorrow, which also includes interviews with Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro, Stephen Quadros, Marc Ratner, and Ben Fowlkes.