Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum from Dallas, Texas is in the books and the champion remained perfect in the newly-purchased Zuffa promotion with a victory in the quarterfinals of the Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament.
But despite a win over a consensus top-five opponent, many fans remained unimpressed with Overeem’s victory, citing that his performance was not as dominant as it should have been if he truly was one of the best heavyweights in the world, as many of his supporters have claimed.
“I came here to knock him out,” the Strikeforce heavyweight champion told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani. “I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t deliver on my promise and I apologize for that.”
“But you need two to tango.”
Overeem called Werdum the best grappler in the heavyweight division going into the fight, but hoped to keep the fight on the feet where he would have the advantage. He was able to do it, but Werdum repeatedly tried to take him to the ground.
“Looking back at the takedown attempts on me, I can only come to the conclusion that Fabricio didn’t want to fight in the standup with me at all and was just stalling the fight on the ground.”
After countless failed takedown attempts, the undersized Werdum took to just lying on his back on the canvas, looking up at a standing Overeem who refused to go to the ground with him. Overeem simply demanded that the fight be stood back up where the two could truly exchange and entertain the fans.
“When somebody’s challenging you, you want to respond to that challenge, especially when there’s a lot of fans watching,” he explained. “But on the other hand, I mean come on, you’re the one lying down all the time.”
It was a frustrating fight for many fans who were really expecting a heated battle between two fighters who were talking trash to one another leading up to Saturday night. But Werdum’s failed insistence on having the fight on the ground was a major deterrent in what otherwise may have been a very memorable fight card.
“He should be a little bit ashamed of his performance for not delivering to the fans at all,” Overeem declared. “He did engage in the standup fight, but not to knock me out at all. It was all based to setup a takedown and as soon as that didn’t work, he kept stalling the fight.”
Nevertheless, “Ubereem” walked away with a victory and will move on to fight Antonio “Big Foot” Silva in the semifinal round of the tournament.
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