Yesterday we commented on reports that Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem will finally throw down in the good old U.S. of A., against Brett Rogers in a non-title affair, with the question; isn’t it about time that Mr. ‘I won the title in 2007’ actually defend the championship? Well, according to a recent interview with Overeem and Mauro Ranallo on The Fight Show, the answer is yes. As in, Overeem has said that the bout is in fact for the belt.
So, naturally, this may be somewhat perplexing to some, due to the fact that it wasn’t long ago that Mr. Roger’s face was abruptly introduced to the cage floor by an over righthand from Fedor Emelianenko. Mauro tackled this question after talking to Kelly Kahl, CBS Vice President of Programming, the network partner of Strikeforce (thanks to Bloody Elbow for the quote):
“Well I know what you’re asking yourself. Didn’t Brett Rogers lose his last outing against Fedor Emelianenko and now he’s fighting for the title? Well that appears to be the case. And one of the reasons of course is what we alluded to with Kelly Kahl, the status of Fedor Emelianenko with Strikeforce. We know there have been issues going on with Emelianenko’s promoter M-1 Global. The relationship with Strikeforce said to be maybe not as rock solid as it would appear but when reached for comment. The source at Strikeforce said no comment but hopefully something’s will be cleared up in the near future.”
It would appear that reports of a contractual ‘tiff’ between Fedor’s crew and Strikeforce are accurate (sigh).