That was the first rebuttal offered by Alistair Overeem after Dana White told UFC Tonight that the former Strikeforce heavyweight champ was “hiding” from former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos. According to White — who was clearly having a bad day at the office — Overeem was offered a five-round main event fight with Dos Santos in Brazil immediately following his dominant win over Frank Mir at UFC 169 (which White was also super critical of, for some reason). After allegedly turning it down, Overeem was then offered a three-round main event with “Cigano,” but promptly turned it down as well.
“He wants nothing to do with dos Santos,” White told UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani. “He’s literally hiding from JDS…but he had no problem calling out Brock Lesnar who hasn’t fought in 2 years and who is in WWE.”
A strong accusation coming from a man usually known for making calculated, restrained statements bolstered by impeccable fact-checking (see: Pena, Julianna) if there ever was one.
What’s that, you say? Overeem is hurt, hence why he’s not ready to fight? Well I guess we might as well hear him out…
After finding out that his promoter (emphasis on “promote”) had once again taken to trashing him in the media, Overeem told MMAFighting that:
I’m hurt. Rib problem. So first [I] need an ETA on recovery time. [It] would be unwise to accept any fight before knowing exactly what’s up. [I] wouldn’t want to pull out of any fight [due to] being unfit, especially an anticipated fight as this one.
My God, what an inconsiderate dick this Overeem guy is. Wanting to be in the best possible health before accepting a gigantic fight against the one guy who has eluded him his entire UFC career? Right there, buddy. Right there.
To be fair, this isn’t the first time someone claimed that Ubereem was ducking Dos Santos. Ever since Overeem juiced his way out of their fight at UFC 146 and pulled out of their rescheduled fight at UFC 160 with an injury, Dos Santos’ camp has aired their grievances with the former K1 star as well. And Overeem’s callout of Brock Lesnar does seems to serve in direct contradiction to his apparent injury, but I imagine that was more a heat of the moment, empty threat than anything else.
Of course, White burying one of his fighters before receiving the facts (or just preferring to ignore them) is common procedure at this point, because it’s hard to understand that injuries sometimes happen when you make your living getting kicked and punched in the head.
That being the case, we should all probably start assuming that Rashad Evans is ducking Daniel Cormier, right?