While the UFC has been busy promoting the size of the two heavyweights in its UFC 141 main event, one of those two big men says there are some big stakes to go along with the December 30 bout.
According to what former Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the winner at UFC 141 will get the next crack at the UFC heavyweight title.
“The winner of the fight between me and Brock [Lesnar] will fight the winner of Cain [Velasquez] and [Junior] dos Santos,” Overeem said. And though he declined to pick a winner in this Saturday night’s heavyweight tilt, he was not so shy about making a prediction for his own bout.
“You know what? I’m going to be bold,” said Overeem. “I’m going to kick that guy’s ass.”
But the supposed number one contender fight with Lesnar isn’t the only topic of conversation for the Dutch heavyweight these days. There’s also the issue of his split from longtime management team Golden Glory, which Overeem addressed in today’s episode of his web series, “The Reem.”
According to Overeem, he left Golden Glory because of a “major breach of trust,” and has now settled at the Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas as his new training home. As Overeem told Helwani, “I left the trainers [at Golden Glory] on very good terms, but the management not. The management, we left on bad terms.”
Overeem went into slightly more detail in the new episode of “The Reem,” explaining that the split was the result of many small communications leading up to one big one.
“Something happened that I found out by myself, which was not told [to] me, that was kept secret from me,” Overeem said in the video, before explaining that Golden Glory manager Bas Boon was not present for his final contract negotiations with the UFC.
“Because Bas wasn’t there, I hired a lawyer to go through the contract with me, step-by-step. What me and the lawyer found out was there were details in the contract which were to my disadvantage and to the advantage of Golden Glory, and which also were not explained to me by Golden Glory and particularly by Bas.”
Though Overeem did not specify exactly what that contractual “disadvantage” pertained to, he told Helwani it was “very serious and very sad,” and explained in his video exactly why he felt he needed to part ways with Golden Glory over it.
“This UFC contract is the biggest contract in my life. It’s the biggest moment in my life. The biggest fights are coming now, in the UFC. It’s going to be a very exciting couple of years coming ahead, and there cannot be miscommunications. It’s got to be clear. …Despite that they are good management to other fighters, maybe, I can’t judge about that. But for me they are not good management. They are bad management. They are harmful management.”
On the surface, it seems like a tricky time to change management and training camps. The fight with Lesnar at UFC 141 could very well be the most important fight of Overeem’s career, and he’ll be forced to prepare for it with new sparring partners in a foreign land.
As Overeem explained to Helwani, not only has Xtreme Couture welcomed him “with open arms,” but he’s not quite as reliant on an outside management team as some people might think.
“It’s not been a real burden, because basically I already did all the stuff myself. I formed my own team around me that basically took care of all my little headaches, my needs. I was already fixing up my own sparring partners, my website’s been done by my own team, I have my own guy getting me sponsors, ‘The Reem’ online is something done by my own team. Basically, I was already doing all my own stuff. People think that it is going to be a big deal for me to leave Golden Glory. Golden Glory did have a hand, of course, because they had some sparring partners and they were doing fight contract negotiations, but basically my own team already took care of it, so it’s not going to be a real big deal.”
As for Lesnar, Overeem insisted he was confident that the two would meet in the cage as promised, regardless of Lesnar’s recent struggles with illness. And while some fans might be obsessing over a video that showed a notably smaller version of the former UFC heavyweight champ, Overeem is expecting the same ferocity and power we’ve always seen from Lesnar.
“Brock is an amazing athlete. He’s a very strong guy, a very strong dude. He’s going to be at UFC 141 125 percent. That’s what I’m expecting. He’s going to be there full force, so some clip shot who knows when, where, whatever — I’ve not even seen it. I’ve got to imagine that if you’re going to accept the fight against me, you will be there 100 percent. In his case I expect 125 percent. He’s going to be motivated.”
While the UFC has been busy promoting the size of the two heavyweights in its UFC 141 main event, one of those two big men says there are some big stakes to go along with the December 30 bout.
According to what former Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the winner at UFC 141 will get the next crack at the UFC heavyweight title.
“The winner of the fight between me and Brock [Lesnar] will fight the winner of Cain [Velasquez] and [Junior] dos Santos,” Overeem said. And though he declined to pick a winner in this Saturday night’s heavyweight tilt, he was not so shy about making a prediction for his own bout.
“You know what? I’m going to be bold,” said Overeem. “I’m going to kick that guy’s ass.”
But the supposed number one contender fight with Lesnar isn’t the only topic of conversation for the Dutch heavyweight these days. There’s also the issue of his split from longtime management team Golden Glory, which Overeem addressed in today’s episode of his web series, “The Reem.”
According to Overeem, he left Golden Glory because of a “major breach of trust,” and has now settled at the Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas as his new training home. As Overeem told Helwani, “I left the trainers [at Golden Glory] on very good terms, but the management not. The management, we left on bad terms.”
Overeem went into slightly more detail in the new episode of “The Reem,” explaining that the split was the result of many small communications leading up to one big one.
“Something happened that I found out by myself, which was not told [to] me, that was kept secret from me,” Overeem said in the video, before explaining that Golden Glory manager Bas Boon was not present for his final contract negotiations with the UFC.
“Because Bas wasn’t there, I hired a lawyer to go through the contract with me, step-by-step. What me and the lawyer found out was there were details in the contract which were to my disadvantage and to the advantage of Golden Glory, and which also were not explained to me by Golden Glory and particularly by Bas.”
Though Overeem did not specify exactly what that contractual “disadvantage” pertained to, he told Helwani it was “very serious and very sad,” and explained in his video exactly why he felt he needed to part ways with Golden Glory over it.
“This UFC contract is the biggest contract in my life. It’s the biggest moment in my life. The biggest fights are coming now, in the UFC. It’s going to be a very exciting couple of years coming ahead, and there cannot be miscommunications. It’s got to be clear. …Despite that they are good management to other fighters, maybe, I can’t judge about that. But for me they are not good management. They are bad management. They are harmful management.”
On the surface, it seems like a tricky time to change management and training camps. The fight with Lesnar at UFC 141 could very well be the most important fight of Overeem’s career, and he’ll be forced to prepare for it with new sparring partners in a foreign land.
As Overeem explained to Helwani, not only has Xtreme Couture welcomed him “with open arms,” but he’s not quite as reliant on an outside management team as some people might think.
“It’s not been a real burden, because basically I already did all the stuff myself. I formed my own team around me that basically took care of all my little headaches, my needs. I was already fixing up my own sparring partners, my website’s been done by my own team, I have my own guy getting me sponsors, ‘The Reem’ online is something done by my own team. Basically, I was already doing all my own stuff. People think that it is going to be a big deal for me to leave Golden Glory. Golden Glory did have a hand, of course, because they had some sparring partners and they were doing fight contract negotiations, but basically my own team already took care of it, so it’s not going to be a real big deal.”
As for Lesnar, Overeem insisted he was confident that the two would meet in the cage as promised, regardless of Lesnar’s recent struggles with illness. And while some fans might be obsessing over a video that showed a notably smaller version of the former UFC heavyweight champ, Overeem is expecting the same ferocity and power we’ve always seen from Lesnar.
“Brock is an amazing athlete. He’s a very strong guy, a very strong dude. He’s going to be at UFC 141 125 percent. That’s what I’m expecting. He’s going to be there full force, so some clip shot who knows when, where, whatever — I’ve not even seen it. I’ve got to imagine that if you’re going to accept the fight against me, you will be there 100 percent. In his case I expect 125 percent. He’s going to be motivated.”
While the UFC has been busy promoting the size of the two heavyweights in its UFC 141 main event, one of those two big men says there are some big stakes to go along with the December 30 bout.