Despite dropping three out of his last four, Alistair Overeem will remain on the UFC’s roster, according to President Dana White.
“He’s still one of the top-10 heavyweights in the world, and we’ll get him another fight,” White said on the latest installment of UFC Tonight, per MMAFighting.com.
Overeem’s time inside the Octagon has been perplexing.
What started with great promise—his first fight saw him chop Brock Lesnar down like a defenseless tree back at UFC 141—now lies in a state of peril. Not only has he lost three out of four, all three of those affairs ended by way of vicious first-round knockouts.
It didn’t help that he got busted for elevated levels of testosterone after the fight with Lesnar, as reported by ESPN. He’s since gone from weighing in just shy of the 265-pound limit for heavyweights to tipping the scales at a svelte 248 pounds for his most recent outing—a loss—opposite Ben Rothwell at UFC Fight Night 50.
Some have said he’s lost his swagger.
He’s gone from a hulking heavyweight, to getting knocked out like it’s the desired result, to being on the receiving end of one-liners on Twitter.
Conventional wisdom would suggest his next fight would be do-or-die.
But the UFC will have to think twice about cutting Overeem, as he’d assuredly end up in a rival promotion, be it Bellator, World Series of Fighting or One FC. With a dearth of quality at heavyweight, it may just want to keep him until his shell has fully been shucked.
All of this talk makes it seem as if the man has nothing left to offer, which is not true.
It’s just going to take some adjusting for fans and pundits alike, many of whom have had Overeem on some sort of pedestal for years as this mythical creature; he is now very much a wounded animal.
So who would make sense next for Overeem?
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