But while that sort of thing wouldn’t have batted an eye under Scott Coker’s droopy watch, Zuffa runs a much tighter ship, and won’t run the risk of Barnett suffering an injury in a worked puroresu match two weeks before he has to show up for a legit cage-fight. As Fighters Only reports:
But while that sort of thing wouldn’t have batted an eye under Scott Coker’s droopy watch, Zuffa runs a much tighter ship, and won’t run the risk of Barnett suffering an injury in a worked puroresu match two weeks before he has to show up for a legit cage-fight. As Fighters Only reports:
…Barnett has been prevailed upon not to take the gig which, despite being a pre-determined pro-wrestling match rather than a proper fight, could still potentially have resulted in him picking up an injury…With Alistair Overeem having already been removed from the semi-finals thanks to an injury/contract dispute, it would have been disastrous had Barnett been forced out as well.
The August 27th IGF card is still going ahead in Japan. Aside from LeBanner it also features Peter Aerts and Ray Sefo. Why anybody would want to see real fighters having pretend fights is beyond us, but pro-wrestling gigs pay well in Japan and with K-1 on hiatus, these kind of gigs are a good earner for name fighters.
So in a strange turn of fate, Josh Barnett has become the biggest star remaining in Strikeforce’s heavyweight tournament — the other semi-finalists are Kharitonov, Antonio Silva, and Daniel Cormier, for God’s sake — and Zuffa actually needs him. Funny how things work out.
The September 10th Strikeforce show will also feature Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza’s latest middleweight title defense against Luke Rockhold, Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal’s return against Roger Gracie, and a lightweight feature between Josh Thomson and former Sengoku stunner Maximo Blanco.
Fabricio Werdum has finally responded to Alistair Overeem’s claims that he should be ashamed of his performance on Saturday night in their Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix quarterfinal match-up. According to Vai Cavalo, Overeem didn’t beat him; he lost the bout on his own by not listening to his corner and instead attempting time and time again to coax “The Demolition Man” into his guard.
“I don’t believe he won, I lost to myself. I could’ve won. The feeling I’m having now is worse than if he has smashed me up and if he was way better than me on the three rounds, winning with a large advantage,” he told TATAME today. “The guys is good, alright, so I’d have to keep my head down and train more. But it wasn’t like that and that made me choked. It was a [mediocre] bout, the fans expected much more, but he didn’t want to the ground at any cost.”
(Clash of styles = boring fight)
Fabricio Werdum has finally responded to Alistair Overeem’s claims that he should be ashamed of his performance on Saturday night in their Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix quarterfinal match-up. According to Vai Cavalo, Overeem didn’t beat him; he lost the bout on his own by not listening to his corner and instead attempting time and time again to coax “The Demolition Man” into his guard.
“I don’t believe he won, I lost to myself. I could’ve won. The feeling I’m having now is worse than if he has smashed me up and if he was way better than me on the three rounds, winning with a large advantage,” he told TATAME today. “The guys is good, alright, so I’d have to keep my head down and train more. But it wasn’t like that and that made me choked. It was a [mediocre] bout, the fans expected much more, but he didn’t want to the ground at any cost.”
Werdum says that one thing he did succeed in doing was throwing Overeem off of his usually dominant striking game.
“You can see that end of the second and third round, when we went to the ground, on the half guard, he just laid there, he didn’t punch me at all, which is what he always does… He didn’t do it, he just held me. But many things happened,” he said. “But me, in particular, wasn’t ok. I trained a lot, I did wrestling trainings, muay thai trainings… I did everything I was supposed to do. But, the way I see it, I have to put much more effort for my next bout so I get stronger, really strong because it makes much difference.”
Pointing out that Overeem was able to use his strength advantage to dump him on his back and to break the clinch, Werdum says that the power disparity was the difference in the fight. He feels that if he had a few more seconds, he could have made The Reem tap out.
“And he used much strength just to hold me there. He followed his game plan and I made a mistake because I didn’t do what we have planned for me to do. When I pulled him to my guard, on the end of the third round, I almost applied a leglock, which was something we trained a lot: pulling him to my guard and grabbing his leg,” he explained.I” did it on the end of the fight, but it wasn’t the right moment. I had the chance to do that before, but it was too late for me to do anything, there were only 10 seconds left, and I couldn’t do anything more.”
A knee injury in the second round Fabricio says may have prompted him to try to pull guard more than planned, but he says that he was put off that Overeem didn’t want to engage with him on the ground.
“I don’t know if the guys really noticed me, but on the second round Overeem got my leg and tried to take me down. Since my leg was stuck on the floor, my left leg, my knee was dislocated. A MMA bout is not only about striking. When I call the guys to fight on the floor, nobody comes. When the guys want to fight me while standing up, I’d go, I’d stand up and try to launch how many shots I could,” Werdum pointed out. “I was doing fine striking, but I paid a high price for not listening to my coach, because that was not my game plan. To call him into my guard, I could do that like one, alright… But, the way I did, it made me tired. Calling him to my guard and standing… Keep doing that over and over again got me really tired.”
Although he didn’t win the bout, Werdum says the fact that he was never really in trouble against a dangerous striker like Overeem was a bit of a moral victory and that he would like a rubbermatch if and when Antonio Silva beats him. As far as who he is fighting next, he believes that it will be against either Andrei Arlovski or Brett Rogers on the same card as the SFHWGP semi-finals.
“Overeem said he’d knock me out and I didn’t see it coming at all. I wasn’t in danger fighting Overeem, he didn’t knock me down… I wasn’t hit by any strong shots, that could almost lead me to a knockout. He never came for me as he always does. There’s a long time since Overeem has been winning his bouts on the first round, on the first minute, right? It’s been a while… And against me he didn’t do it, he didn’t come for it, he didn’t work his ground and pound,” he explained. “I intend to fight on this next phase of the GP, not on the GP, but on the same event, against Arlovski or Brett Rogers, who have also lost. I guess it’d be a good thing for me to fight on this event because I felt I needed to fight more, I stayed without fighting for too long. I was a year off, and that’s a lot of time. I lost the rhythm… I was doing good on the training, but fighting is different. On the day of the bout it’s different.”
“In my opinion, Big Foot will defeat Overeem,. And I guess it’ll be striking. If Big Foot goes like he went went he was with Arlovski, he’ll defeat Overeem. I’d fight on the same event that they would, I don’t know against who, but in case Overeem loses, on the next event we could have a rematch worth the belt, because after this bout we’re even,” he said. “I won one, and he won the other, so we have to do this third match and check it all out. It’s 1×1, so we have to do this bout, because it’s not convincing anyone: not even for him because I made the first move all times, and neither for me because I lost it. ”
“You know what, it was not the most exciting, but in terms of from where I was at, it was perfect. Basically, I put him on ground, and after I started feeling him out, feeling his energy underneath me, I knew that he had a lot of umph, he had a lot of guts, he had a lot of gusto, so any opening, any transition, any big movement, it was going to be met by a lot of explosive force.
We could then end up in some scrambles, spend energy I don’t want to, it’s unnecessary, so instead, get him bucking, get him using that energy. And I have quite heavy hips, which is a very common staple of catch-as-catch-can [wrestling], wearing people out — not just with strikes or submissions or holds — but with your overall body positioning.
“You know what, it was not the most exciting, but in terms of from where I was at, it was perfect. Basically, I put him on ground, and after I started feeling him out, feeling his energy underneath me, I knew that he had a lot of umph, he had a lot of guts, he had a lot of gusto, so any opening, any transition, any big movement, it was going to be met by a lot of explosive force.
We could then end up in some scrambles, spend energy I don’t want to, it’s unnecessary, so instead, get him bucking, get him using that energy. And I have quite heavy hips, which is a very common staple of catch-as-catch-can [wrestling], wearing people out — not just with strikes or submissions or holds — but with your overall body positioning.
So I just put that crush on him that whole fight, or at least that whole first round. And I could hear his labored breathing, his wind, his energy, everything just collapsing. So I knew come second round he was going to be thinking more about ‘don’t drown on the ground’, and then I could open up and start hitting him with stuff.”
While Alistair Overeem wasn’t particularly satisfied with his Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix fight against Fabricio Werdum last weekend, Josh Barnett feels he did everything he needed to do against Brett Rogers during his return to high-profile competition. Following his second-round submission victory, War Master Barnett will meet Sergei Kharitonov in the semi-finals of the tournament (date and location TBA), and feels he’s the front-runner to win it all, obviously. Would you agree with him at this point?
(History has proven that it’s tough to look good when your opponent wants a jiu-jitsu match, no matter how good you are.)
Alistair Overeem was on “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani today and the Strikeforce heavyweight champion addressed the glut of MMA fans and analysts who disagree with him winning his heavyweight grand prix quarterfinal bout with Fabrico Werdum Saturday night. According to “The Demolition Man,” just because Werdum connected with more shots in the bout, doesn’t mean he won the fight, like many claim.
“I won the fight but I was not satisfied. I didn’t get a KO. I worked hard and when I look at the fight, I did dominate him. I stuck to the game plan but you have to give credit to Fabricio; he was prepared. He was not going to get suckered into my game, which is the stand-up and he got me out of my game. His takedowns were not successful, but I think he trained hard for this fight. He really wanted to win,” he explained. “I felt his power and he was there to win. I’m not impressed with his striking. He does not hit hard. He was using his strikes to set up his takedowns, but there was no damage. I was annoyed. When you look at a fight, who’s more dominant? You can see who’s more dominant.”
(History has proven that it’s tough to look good when your opponent wants a jiu-jitsu match, no matter how good you are.)
Alistair Overeem was on “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani today and the Strikeforce heavyweight champion addressed the glut of MMA fans and analysts who disagree with him winning his heavyweight grand prix quarterfinal bout with Fabrico Werdum Saturday night. According to “The Demolition Man,” just because Werdum connected with more shots in the bout, doesn’t mean he won the fight, like many claim.
“I won the fight but I was not satisfied. I didn’t get a KO. I worked hard and when I look at the fight, I did dominate him. I stuck to the game plan but you have to give credit to Fabricio; he was prepared. He was not going to get suckered into my game, which is the stand-up and he got me out of my game. His takedowns were not successful, but I think he trained hard for this fight. He really wanted to win,” he explained. “I felt his power and he was there to win. I’m not impressed with his striking. He does not hit hard. He was using his strikes to set up his takedowns, but there was no damage. I was annoyed. When you look at a fight, who’s more dominant? You can see who’s more dominant.”
He points out that he controlled the cage and the bout and the only time Werdum “won” any of the exchanges, it was a smattering of light punches that promply stopped when he counter-punched and “Vai Cavalo” pulled guard, which basically slowed the pace of the fight any time he attempted to set up a combination.
“That is stalling the fight — or sort of withdrawing from the fight. That basically slowed down the fight and kept anything from happening. Of course I expected him to pull guard, but I didn’t expect him to do it like thirty times.”
In reality, it’s estimated that the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt butt-flopped at least 21 times in an attempte to pull Overeem into his guards, but “The Reem” wasn’t having any of it.
While everyone was busy on Internet message boards and comment sections furiously typing in caps locks with extra exclamation points how overrated and shitty of a fighter Alistair Overeem is because he didn’t walk through Fabricio Werdum as expected, The Reem Season 2, Episode 3 was quietly released to the masses.
While everyone was busy on Internet message boards and comment sections furiously typing in caps locks with extra exclamation points how overrated and shitty of a fighter Alistair Overeem is because he didn’t walk through Fabricio Werdum as expected, The Reem Season 2, Episode 3 was quietly released to the masses.
In this latest segment, we get a behind the scenes view of fight week through the eyes of”The Reem” with some cool music and punking of Scott Coker thrown in for good measure.
For those of you who haven’t jumped off “The Demolition Man’s” warwagon, or for the rest of you who recently became Josh Barnett’s oldest fans, check out the episode and voice your support/distaste below.
The Reem Team has released the latest episode of Alistair Overeem’s web documentary series and as usual, it’s stellar.
In this segment, “The Demolition Man” looks back on his career five years ago when he fought in PRIDE against Fabricio Werdum the first time around and he talks about the differences in his camp, his training and his life between then and now. The behind the scenes footage from back then alone makes the segment worth watching.
