Stipe Miocic will make his first defence of the UFC’s heavyweight title against Alistair Overeem at UFC 203 on Saturday, and Friday’s weigh-in promises more buildup to a titanic duel.
The reigning champion is hoping home advantage will lead him to vict…
StipeMiocic will make his first defence of the UFC’s heavyweight title against Alistair Overeem at UFC 203 on Saturday, and Friday’s weigh-in promises more buildup to a titanic duel.
The reigning champion is hoping home advantage will lead him to victory in his hometown of Cleveland, and the Quickens Loans Arena is sure to hand Miocic a major edge in his first attempt at defending his belt.
Overeem, 36, steps into Miocic‘s territory, looking to finally clinch the UFC heavyweight belt, but the bookmakers’ odds run ever so slightly against the Dutchman.
Read on for a preview of Saturday’s title face-off, complete with ticket information and a fight prediction leading up to the UFC 203 main event.
It’s been just four months since Miocic surprised then-heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum at UFC 198 to capture the belt with a first-round knockout in Brazil.
Now, the 34-year-old is far closer to home in his first opportunity to defend the championship, and he recently opened up on what it means to him for this occasion to unfold in Cleveland:
That being said, fighting in his native Brazil didn’t do Werdum much good in his attempt to retain the belt, although Miocic likely won’t buy into any bad omens or superstition before Saturday’s clash.
BT Sport UFC recently provided a reminder of how convincing Miocic was en route to capturing Werdum’s title, as he fired out of the blocks early to beat a mixed martial arts veteran:
Experience is a defining factor between him and Overeem, since the latter has more than three times the number of professional fights on his resume than Miocic has.
Overeem’s record sits at 41-14-1 after he beat Andrei Arlovski in May to secure his fourth successive win. MMApodcaster Sean Sheehan highlighted another pattern that goes against Miocic:
Miocic boasts a 15-2 record since making his professional debut just six years ago. He earned his way into the UFC following just 18 months on the elite circuit.
According to Overeem, complacency could lead to the defending champion’s downfall, per MMA Fighting’s Chuck Mindenhall:
Stipe was going to different parties. You could see that. You could see that on his clothes, he was wearing different clothes. He’s at different party events, he’s acting crazy, having a drink in his hand. He has been celebrating his victory. And you know what? Who can blame him?
He became the champion in record time. But while he was celebrating, I was working. I was training hard. And my life has been dedicated for the last two-and-a-half years. The last six months I have definitely put on a couple of notches more. We’re ready, we’re going to get that belt.
Overeem joined the UFC one year after Miocic and has suffered three defeats in the same time it has taken his foe to concede just two, but this could well be the Dutchman’s last—and best—chance at the heavyweight belt.
Despite that late run, though, Miocic has knocked out his last three opponents, while nine of Overeem’s 14 career defeats have come by way of TKO.
With all due respect to CM Punk and Mickey Gall, UFC 203 is all about Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem.
Saturday night will see Miocic try to defend his UFC heavyweight title against Overeem, who is fighting in his first title bout since jo…
With all due respect to CM Punk and Mickey Gall, UFC 203 is all about StipeMiocic and Alistair Overeem.
Saturday night will see Miocic try to defend his UFC heavyweight title against Overeem, who is fighting in his first title bout since joining the UFC nearly five years ago.
Miocic is a slight favorite going into this fight, according to Odds Shark, but Overeem is one of the most accomplished mixed martial arts fighters the UFC has ever had with an outstanding professional record of 41 wins to just 14 losses.
Unlike the CM Punk vs. Gall matchup, we know a lot about Miocic and Overeem, which is what makes this bout so enticing.
It’s hard to imagine this fight going five rounds due to the sheer power of both strikers, but let’s take a look at each fighter before we get into any fight predictions.
While both fighters are identical in every physical category except age, the advantage may come by way of Miocic‘s activity and strike rate. He lands 4.93 strikes a minute compared to Overeem’s 3.81.
When Miocic took Fabricio Werdum‘s title via first-round knockout, his activity and movement were crucial in avoiding Werdum’s shots.
It’s hard to believe that this is Overeem’s first title shot in the UFC when you consider that he’s defeated six former UFC champions during his career. Let’s take a look at some of the fighters he’s gone up against and defeated inside the Octagon:
During his days in Strikeforce, Overeem actually went up against and defeated former UFC heavyweight champ Werdum by decision back in 2011.
Werdum, who is also fighting on Saturday night against Travis Browne, offered his insight into the Miocic vs. Overeem bout, per MMAFighting.com:
Is Werdum the next Mystic Mac of the UFC? No, but he has a point. Miocic is a great counterpuncher, as Werdum knows by now.
But the reality is that while Miocic is the favorite, this fight is a toss-up.
And for MMAjunkie’s Ben Fowlkes (via Co-Main Event‘s Chad Dundas), it was literally up to a coin flip (warning: NSFW language):
Prediction
This fight is not going the distance.
The first couple of minutes of Round 1 will be boring, to say the least, as each fighter tries to get a feel for his opponent. Don’t be surprised to see Overeem push the pace and have ring control for the majority of the first while scoring a few kicks to the body as Miocic attempts to step forward with a jab.
The second round is when Miocic finds his rhythm and begins to punish Overeem’s aggressiveness. I find it unlikely that much—if any—of the fight will take place on the ground, as Miocic is a much better fighter on his feet and doesn’t want to mess with Overeem, who has 19 submission finishes in his career.
It’s a shame that it took so long for Overeem to get a title fight because this may be one of the last chances—if not the last chance—he has at a championship.
Unfortunately, he runs into a fighter on a hot streak with the type of knockout power to take out anyone in the heavyweight division.
Miocic will connect with Overeem’s chin in the third round as he defends his belt in front of his hometown of Cleveland, finishing the fight by TKO.
After Stipe Miocic (15-2) went to Brazil and took the heavyweight title belt away from Fabricio Werdum on his home turf, the Cleveland native and new champion will try to avoid the same fate when he takes on Alistair Overeem (41-14, one no-contest) at …
After Stipe Miocic (15-2) went to Brazil and took the heavyweight title belt away from Fabricio Werdum on his home turf, the Cleveland native and new champion will try to avoid the same fate when he takes on Alistair Overeem (41-14, one no-contest) at Quicken Loans Arena on Saturday night at UFC 203.
Miocic is listed as a -145 favorite (bet $145 to win $100) at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark for his first title defense.
Defending the belt has not been easy recently for the UFC heavyweight champ, as Werdum lost it in his first fight after unifying the titles with a third-round guillotine-choke submission of Cain Velasquez at UFC 188 on June 13, 2015.
Miocic knocked Werdum out two minutes and 47 seconds into the first round at UFC 198 on May 14 to run his winning streak to three since his last loss to Junior dos Santos via unanimous decision two years ago.
Overeem is a +115 underdog on the UFC 203 betting lines and has earned the title shot vs. Miocic by winning four bouts in a row, with three of them ending by way of knockout. He scored a second-round TKO of Dos Santos, another former heavyweight champ, last December 19, before the same result happened against Andrei Arlovski in the main event of UFC Fight Night 87 on May 8. Of his 41 wins, 37 have been finishes.
Before the main event, Werdum (20-6-1) will try to rebound from his loss to Miocic when he fights Travis Browne (18-4-1) as solid -225 chalk at the sportsbooks. The specialist in Brazilian jiu-jitsu saw his six-bout winning streak end with the loss, and four of his previous five victories were stoppages. He was originally scheduled to battle Ben Rothwell here, but a knee injury for his opponent forced him to withdraw on August 11.
Browne is a +175 dog and also hopes to bounce back from a brutal first-round KO suffered at the hands of Velasquez at UFC 200 on July 9. The 6’7″ Hawaiian is just 2-3 in his past five fights after rising near the top of the heavyweight rankings at the end of 2013.
At that time, he had won three consecutive bouts via first-round KO over the likes of Overeem, Josh Barnett and Gabriel Gonzaga before losing by unanimous decision to Werdum in a title-eliminator matchup. Werdum went on to win the interim title vs. Mark Hunt.
In the UFC’s first ever visit to Cleveland, Ohio, heavyweight hometown champion Stipe Miocic defends his title for the first time against former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem. Miocic claimed the title four months ago when he knocked out Fa…
In the UFC’s first ever visit to Cleveland, Ohio, heavyweight hometown champion Stipe Miocic defends his title for the first time against former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem. Miocic claimed the title four months ago when he knocked out Fabricio Werdum halfway through the first round. Challenger Overeem, 56 fights into his professional MMA career, has wins over Werdum, Frank Mir, Andrei Arlovski, Brock Lesnar, Junior dos Santos and Vitor Belfort—all former UFC champions.
This card also features CM Punk’s long-awaited UFC and MMA debut, against the largely unknown Mickey Gall. Gall called out Punk after his first professional MMA fight while UFC president Dana White was in the audience, filming for his scouting show Lookin’ for a Fight. That’s how Gall came to fight his second pro fight in the UFC. After knocking Mike Jackson down and submitting him with a rear naked choke at 45 seconds into the first round, Gall secured his money fight with Punk.
Your regular crew is here for picks: Craig Amos, Scott Harris, Nathan McCarter, Steven Rondina and me!
“Luck is for losers.”
Say this much for CM Punk: He must save a ton on safety nets.
As the former pro wrestling star prepares for his pro MMA debut Saturday at UFC 203, Punk (real name Phil Brooks) is doing so in a headwind partially of his own devisin…
“Luck is for losers.”
Say this much for CM Punk: He must save a ton on safety nets.
As the former pro wrestling star prepares for his pro MMA debut Saturday at UFC 203, Punk (real name Phil Brooks) is doing so in a headwind partially of his own devising. Insulting Lady Luck was a mere trifle.
When he steps in Saturday against talented youngster Mickey Gall, it will be Punk’s first sanctioned MMA fight, amateur or professional. He will be 37 years old. He will have a history of back and shoulder problems. He will have no combat sports background to speak of.
Oh, and he spent most of his adult life ruling the game many MMA fans view as their sport’s embarrassing older sibling and, in the run-up to his fight with Gall, has been trolling those individuals. For a great example, check out his deadpan hot tub descriptions and other things of that ilk in the episode of the UFC’s Embedded series wherein he gives a tour of his house (Note: video contains some NSFW language):
So, yes, there is going to be a bit of naysaying.
Do the naysayers have a point? Punk, for one, isn’t going to try to talk you out of that stance. His days of heavy promotion, that gift of carnival gab that helped earn him celebrity status, are in the past, along with professional wrestling.
“I don’t see the need for it,” Punk said of cutting promos during a UFC 203 media conference call attended by Bleacher Report. “People either love me or hate me already. I’m not trying to talk anybody into the building on this one. I think the allure is just the fact that it’s happening, and the story writes itself. So it’s not a fabricated thing where I need to create some drama between me and Mickey. We’re going to fight. That’s the beauty of it…With [MMA] you get in there and you’ve got to win and it’s nobody else’s decision.”
So when the goal is for the fight to do the talking, what, exactly, will his performance say? And perhaps more importantly, what does it need to say for all the CM Punk naysayers to finally get excommunicated to the hinterlands where they belong?
Defining Success
“I think success is defined by the individual, you know?” Punk said during the media call. “I’ve had a successful camp. I’ve had bumps in the road. To me, fighting in the Octagon is a success. I think walking in there is a success.”
There are plenty of different ways to define success. Here, Punk is setting the bar at a height that pointedly does not cover actual winning. It’s a good way to claim victory without, you know, claiming victory. And that makes sense, given the aforementioned headwind into which Punk knowingly ventures here.
What’s more, there’s another definition of success at play here, and it involves what we all, at the end of the proverbial day, know is really happening. No one will be able to read the true metric of Punk’s success until several days after UFC 203, when the pay-per-view buy estimates for the event come out.
None other than Jim Ross, the longtime WWE commentator, said this to MMA Junkie Thursday regarding Punk:
I don’t want to say it was a publicity stunt, because that would be inaccurate, but I thought it had a lot of publicity stunt elements to it. You sign a guy, based on his being a major fan of the genre of MMA and being an amateur practitioner of muay thai, being a student of the game, no doubt about that. But, also being 37 years old and never having a fight. So why would they sign him to a three-fight deal, as I recall? Because he brings a great marketing opportunity with him because he has name identity. …What they’re going to get out of him this week is additional pay-per-view buys they may not have received if Punk was not on the card because we’re talking about him.
Is a big buy number, or just getting in there, truly sufficient to make this a successful night for Punk? In all honesty, it probably is.
Back in 2014, when the Punk signing occurred, the UFC was casting about for stars. It was post-Anderson Silva and post-Georges St-Pierre but pre-Ronda Rousey and pre-Conor McGregor. That, in all likelihood, is what led to an offer to Punk. It was probably a nice offer. All Punk had to do was pick up the phone. That may well be what success looks like, even if the night doesn’t technically end with your hand in the air.
How Will He Fare?
No matter what success means or doesn’t mean for Punk, inside the cage, there’s still a fight to win or lose. Punk’s injury history reared its head during his MMA training—nearly two years elapsed since he announced his UFC signing to UFC 203—and it could during the fight. How will a man who has had back surgery move around inside the cage?
As Ross alluded to, Punk has some fighting experience, although it’s primarily with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Is it possible his grappling game is good enough to earn a submission on the ground? Yes, it is possible.
What’s less possible is Punk being able to get Gall to the ground in the first place. The unheralded, 24-year-old Gall (2-0) is a good athlete and a well-rounded fighter who began training in multiple MMA disciplines from a young age—sort of the anti-Punk, if you will. Ergo, Gall has real submission chops and solid boxing to boot.
In short, Punk would appear to be at a marked disadvantage in every phase of the matchup.
To his credit, Punk has been fairly humble about his own skills, often bending over backward in deference to his coaching team at Roufusport, the Milwaukee gym led by former kickboxer Duke Roufus and populated with the likes of former UFC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis and ONE Championship welterweight kingpin Ben Askren, among others. Punk also takes pains to acknowledge that, despite being 37 years old, he is still a novice in MMA.
“I think my aptitude is just absorbing everything,” Punk said during the media call. “You know, I got three head coaches pretty much. We got a revolving group of people who’ve been helping me with wrestling and on top of that, you know, I train with killers and champions. It’s a lot to take in but I was a sponge and I am a sponge and I just, you know, to me that’s what it’s all about.”
According to sports betting site Odds Shark, on early Friday morning Punk was a significant +300 underdog. But maybe that’s not an all-encompassing enough mechanism. Punk, if you agree to grade on something of a curve, already has all the winning he needs.
“I’ve said it ad nauseam: It’s about the journey,” Punk said. “It’s about finding out about different disciplines and learning from everybody from all walks of life, but my mindset I think is probably my biggest tool.”
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Capturing the UFC Heavyweight Championship is one thing; defending it is a different matter altogether.
That’s the challenge Stipe Miocic faces when he welcomes Alistair Overeem to Cleveland in the main event at UFC 203 on Saturday.
As a Clevelan…
Capturing the UFC Heavyweight Championship is one thing; defending it is a different matter altogether.
That’s the challenge Stipe Miocic faces when he welcomes Alistair Overeem to Cleveland in the main event at UFC 203 on Saturday.
As a Clevelander, Miocic will have a raucous home crowd backing him, but keeping the heavyweight belt has been difficult historically. No one has defended it more than twice. Eight of the 18 champions in the organization’s history have failed to defend it even once.
The Reem figures to be a tall task for the new champion. He comes into the fight with a four-fight win streak over some of the best fighters in the division.
Here’s a look at the matchup from a numbers perspective. We’ll also go over how both fighters got to this point and offer up a prediction.
How Overeem Got Here
Overeem is one of the true veterans of the sport in the heavyweight division. He has more than 50 professional fights on his resume.
He has fought some of the biggest names in the sport. From Chuck Liddell and Shogun Rua to Junior dos Santos and Brock Lesnar, he’s mixed it up with some of the most popular fighters in history.
The Reem believes that his many years of experience will be a deciding factor against Miocic.
“In my career, 22 years of training and competing, I’ve fought in front of hostile Russian crowds, Japanese crowds where no one knew me, all kinds of audiences,” he said, according to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports. “Anything you can imagine, I’ve lived it. I know how to deal with it. I’m not expecting to be cheered, but that’s OK. The crowd and its cheers aren’t going to decide the fight.
Yet, despite 41 MMA wins, he’s never had a crack at the UFC title.
That’s because Overeem’s career has been characterized by both good and bad runs. For every tear that he has went on that made him look invincible, he’s suffered questionable losses that make everyone question if he’ll ever be a champion. For instance, before his four-fight win streak that led to this title shot, he went 1-3 with losses to Antonio Silva, Ben Rothwell and Travis Browne by way of knockout.
But a transition to Greg Jackson’s gym has benefited Overeem. After losing to Rothwell, the Dutch striker moved to the gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has come out a much more patient and efficient striker.
The results have been obvious.
Instead of attacking with hubris and getting knocked out on a consistent basis, Overeem has become a more calculating striker who puts people away, but only when he has the right opportunity.
It’s been a long road, but the new Overeem is the best version to give the current champion trouble.
How Miocic Got Here
Miocic has always been an intriguing prospect in a division that is relatively devoid of them.
He came into the UFC in 2011 as a Division I college wrestler who also played collegiate baseball; he was the rare heavyweight who had athleticism to go with some knockout power.
As Miocic has gone from intriguing prospect to proven veteran and champion, he too has seen his game evolve.
In general, he is the consummate volume striker. His 4.93 significant strikes per minute is a game-changer and uncommon for heavyweights not named Cain Velasquez.
However, Miocic can become a counterpuncher when necessary. In this UFC highlight of his win over the former champion Fabricio Werdum, he won the title when Werdum looked to land a big shot of his own and Miocic cracked him with a counter that put the champ down.
Miocic is on a winning streak of his own, albeit one that isn’t as long as the challenger’s. That’s probably why oddsmakers have him as a minus-145 favorite, per Odds Shark.
After losing a tough Fight of the Night decision to Dos Santos in December 2014, Miocic has knocked out Mark Hunt, Andrei Arlovski and Werdum to become the UFC champion.
Prediction
As is the case with most heavyweight matchups, this fight could boil down to who hits who first. Both Miocic and Overeem have excellent power, and it’s evident in the combined six finishes in their last seven fights.
Still, predicting that the guy who lands the first clean strike will win is a cop-out.
Instead, let’s take a look at the fighter who is equipped to win a more drawn-out affair.
Right now, that’s Miocic. The more patient Overeem has avoided being knocked out since moving to Jackson’s gym, but The Reem who can be drawn into a slugfest and knocked out is still inside him somewhere.
That’s important, because as Patrick Wyman of Bleacher Report notes, Miocic cannot only pressure but also has a knack for landing counters when he needs to.
Expect Miocic to pressure early and put Overeem in a position where he feels the need to press the action. If and when he falls into that trap, Miocic will be prepared with a counter to defend his belt.
Stipe Miocic will make his first defence of the UFC’s heavyweight title against Alistair Overeem at UFC 203 on Saturday, and Friday’s weigh-in promises more buildup to a titanic duel.