T Nation

Overeem Pulled from HWGP

Combat
#21

[quote]UB07 wrote:
I feel like Overeem is getting a lot of love simply because he is an absolute specimen physically and this is a bodybuilding website. Lets be real - He wasn’t that impressive against Werdum (striking wise) and now he wants to fight the klitschkos? I dont know how well that would turn out for him. He may get a huge pay-day so that might be good for his wallet, but his MMA career would not be helped.

Overeem’s ground game is good, and much improved over the last few years, but a specialist like Barnett would destroy him on the ground. Barnett is big enough to get the fight off the feet and turn it into a catch wrestling match. Advantage: Barnett. [/quote]

It’s difficult to strike when all your adversary do is butt-flopping and begging you to come to the ground.

#22

[quote]kaisermetal wrote:

[quote]UB07 wrote:
I feel like Overeem is getting a lot of love simply because he is an absolute specimen physically and this is a bodybuilding website. Lets be real - He wasn’t that impressive against Werdum (striking wise) and now he wants to fight the klitschkos? I dont know how well that would turn out for him. He may get a huge pay-day so that might be good for his wallet, but his MMA career would not be helped.

Overeem’s ground game is good, and much improved over the last few years, but a specialist like Barnett would destroy him on the ground. Barnett is big enough to get the fight off the feet and turn it into a catch wrestling match. Advantage: Barnett. [/quote]

It’s difficult to strike when all your adversary do is butt-flopping and begging you to come to the ground.[/quote]

And it’s difficult to grapple when all your opponent does is try to squirm free and stand up.

Who made standing and striking the bench mark of mma?

#23

You can’t grapple if you can’t take the guy the ground.

#24

[quote]UB07 wrote:
I feel like Overeem is getting a lot of love simply because he is an absolute specimen physically and this is a bodybuilding website. Lets be real - He wasn’t that impressive against Werdum (striking wise) and now he wants to fight the klitschkos? I dont know how well that would turn out for him. He may get a huge pay-day so that might be good for his wallet, but his MMA career would not be helped.

Overeem’s ground game is good, and much improved over the last few years, but a specialist like Barnett would destroy him on the ground. Barnett is big enough to get the fight off the feet and turn it into a catch wrestling match. Advantage: Barnett. [/quote]

slow clap and I like the reem.
but it’s true.

#25

[quote]UB07 wrote:
I feel like Overeem is getting a lot of love simply because he is an absolute specimen physically and this is a bodybuilding website. Lets be real - He wasn’t that impressive against Werdum (striking wise) and now he wants to fight the klitschkos? I dont know how well that would turn out for him. He may get a huge pay-day so that might be good for his wallet, but his MMA career would not be helped.

Overeem’s ground game is good, and much improved over the last few years, but a specialist like Barnett would destroy him on the ground. Barnett is big enough to get the fight off the feet and turn it into a catch wrestling match. Advantage: Barnett. [/quote]

He’s always had underrated ground game, and its better now then it has been in the past, as well as his TD defense.

The Werdum fight should not be used as an example of his standup technique. Im sure its hard for him to set anything up when you’re opponent literally shoots or pulls guard every 10 seconds, and its safe to say he wouldnt have been as relaxed with his defense if he was fighting someone who’s standup was at least somewhat respectable.

IMO he would frustrate Barnett, avoiding the TD for the most part, and winning the standup leading to a UD. Again, its not like Overeem’s ground game is just good, its enough to keep anyone at HW at bay. People need to look into some of his grappling competitions, like winning the European ADCC trials. This was BEFORE he exploded into a monster too.

Again, i would not at this point go so far as to say he is one of the best HW’s in the world at the moment, but if he fights with a good gameplan, takes an intelligent approach and puts it all together in the octagon, combined with his physical abilities, he has all the potential in the world.

#26

[quote]UB07 wrote:
I feel like Overeem is getting a lot of love simply because he is an absolute specimen physically and this is a bodybuilding website. Lets be real - He wasn’t that impressive against Werdum (striking wise) and now he wants to fight the klitschkos? I dont know how well that would turn out for him. He may get a huge pay-day so that might be good for his wallet, but his MMA career would not be helped.
[/quote]
Boxing is a whole different sport than MMA, if you’d like to look for some more relevant stuff check out his K-1 GP fights. Still, boxing is a whole different thing and I don’t know if Reem would even stand a chance but I know that neither of Klitschko brothers would spend the whole fight buttscooting.

#27

And now he’s fighting in October, not in Strikeforce. I like Ubereem, but this is making it tough to support him:

#28

[quote]CaptainArmbar wrote:
And now he’s fighting in October, not in Strikeforce. I like Ubereem, but this is making it tough to support him:

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/news/340924/Overeem-fighting-in-October-but-not-for-Strikeforce/[/quote]

I saw his interview about this.

It sounds like Showtime set the dates for the GP based on TV scheduling, not the athletes. In today’s world of MMA (and combat sports in general) these guys really don’t fight very much (compared to say the Thais), so they want every fight to count, and they want to be 100% ready for every fight. I can see that. Overeem is not used to dealing with the Zuffa machine, in fact it seemed like he’s made an effort in his MMA career to be as high-profile as possible without doing the UFC, because the UFC (and not Strikeforce) is this strange promotional entity that acts more like an employer than a promotion.

It sounds like he’d agreed to fight as early as October, and planned his schedule around that, so after his last fight, took a bunch of time off he wouldn’t have if he’d been planning to fight in September.

I don’t know. It’s one thing for a rising star to be flexible, and take fights just to take fights: move up the ladder and get their names out there, but given that Strikeforce isn’t making him give up his title, I think it’s safe to assume he’ll fight whoever wins the GP anyways, so he really had nothing to gain by coming to fight at less than 100%…

#29

First off, there’s no way in hell Overeem gets in a ring with either of the Klitschko’s. He would get jabbed to death. Second, for a guy with his “pedigree” he sure does make a lot of excuses and find ways to not fight. And lastly, his striking is still overrated.

He was losing to Werdum on his feet, guess the refs penalized Werdum for falling on his ass every 10 seconds on scooting around the joint. I doubt Overeem ever fights any other big name and just coasts by beating guys like Todd Huffy hoping people look past his opponents and solely at his record and champion his place in MMA annals.

#30

[quote]kaisermetal wrote:
You can’t grapple if you can’t take the guy the ground.[/quote]

I never said otherwise.

#31

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]kaisermetal wrote:
You can’t grapple if you can’t take the guy the ground.[/quote]

I never said otherwise.[/quote]

yup, but you said as if it was Overeem’s fault for not finishing the fight.

#32

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
First off, there’s no way in hell Overeem gets in a ring with either of the Klitschko’s. He would get jabbed to death. Second, for a guy with his “pedigree” he sure does make a lot of excuses and find ways to not fight. And lastly, his striking is still overrated.

He was losing to Werdum on his feet, guess the refs penalized Werdum for falling on his ass every 10 seconds on scooting around the joint. I doubt Overeem ever fights any other big name and just coasts by beating guys like Todd Huffy hoping people look past his opponents and solely at his record and champion his place in MMA annals. [/quote]

Actually, Werdum WAS getting the upper hand in some exchanges they had, i don’t know why he didn’t insist on that.

#33

[quote]kaisermetal wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
First off, there’s no way in hell Overeem gets in a ring with either of the Klitschko’s. He would get jabbed to death. Second, for a guy with his “pedigree” he sure does make a lot of excuses and find ways to not fight. And lastly, his striking is still overrated.

He was losing to Werdum on his feet, guess the refs penalized Werdum for falling on his ass every 10 seconds on scooting around the joint. I doubt Overeem ever fights any other big name and just coasts by beating guys like Todd Huffy hoping people look past his opponents and solely at his record and champion his place in MMA annals. [/quote]

Actually, Werdum WAS getting the upper hand in some exchanges they had, i don’t know why he didn’t insist on that.[/quote]

That’s what i just said?

#34

And i was just agreeing.

#35

^^^ Ahh, that was hard to tell through text. Thought somehow my point was misconstrued.

#36

English is not my mother language, sometimes i end up talking/typing like a retarded =(

#37

^^^ That was probably more my fault. I misinterpreted your intent. Nice new av.

#38

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
^^^ That was probably more my fault. I misinterpreted your intent. Nice new av.[/quote]

Yup, the biggest fight of the year for me, i probably won’t even be able to sleep.

#39

Son of a bitch.

This whole situation seems kinda fucked up to me. First they kick him out of the tournament and replace him with someone who no one gives a fuck about without hesitation, now he’s being released from his contract. Somehow i dont think this would have happened had strikeforce not been bought out by Zuffa…

#40

I dont blame Zuffa at all. You have a guy that wants to delay a tournament. What do you want them to do?

Add on top of that he has 1 fight left on the contract and there are 2 fights left in the tourny he is expendable. He has a name because of how he looks and thats why I was a little surprised on the release but Zuffa did what they felt they had to do.

He has signed on to fight in Russia and he will be back in a kickboxing ring so he will be fine. But I dont blame Zuffa at all for letting him go.