Friday, 14 May 2010 14:23 | Written by Dallas Winston
The rampant complaints that Alistair Overeem would never defend his Strikeforce belt nor dare take a fight in the U.S. because of steroid testing have been silenced.
The Dutch kickboxer has come under fire in the last few years for his drastic modulation of weight and physique, and also for the litany of circumstances that prevented him from being an active champion in Strikeforce’s heavyweight division after beating Paul Buentello and being crowned heavyweight monarch of the promotion back in 2007.
Fast-rising heavyweight slugger Brett Rogers will definitely represent Overeem’s stiffest competition in several years when they square off Saturday at Strikeforce: "Heavy Artillery", with fading kickboxing crossover Mark Hunt and the new and devolved Mirko CroCop accounting for his most esteemed opposition in the recent rear-view mirror.
A common counterargument to Overeem’s scant list of top-ten foes since Pride hit the morgue is the allusion to his surprising success in the K-1 ring latterly, where Overeem toppled vaunted strikers Badri Hari, Peter Aerts, and Ewerton Texeira quite convincingly. At the very least, accomplishments like this are testaments to Overeem’s adept striking, and prove that he’s far from an easy fight for anyone who intends on standing and trading with him--as Brett Rogers surely is.
I'm predicting both of the classic Overeem techniques will be at play... the leaping left knee to the midsection, and I think he'll bomb knees from the clinch and then catch Rogers with the standing guillotine.
I'm predicting both of the classic Overeem techniques will be at play... the leaping left knee to the midsection, and I think he'll bomb knees from the clinch and then catch Rogers with the standing guillotine.
The only portion of his striking that is k-1 level is his knees,
He does not have heart to dig deep when he is in trouble and that flaw alone is why I chose Rogers.
Rogers is a big strong guy, and Overeem won't bully him around,
The only thing with Rogers right now is he's coming off a big KO loss, so he may be gun shy and more
apt to being ko'd
The way he was on top of Fedor throwing bombs empressed the hell out of me, if the same happens with overeem he will be done.
This is a very interesting truth that I outlined in the article.
Its weird that Overeem is a touted K-1 striker, but really only for his knees in the clinch, and his leaping left-knee to the body.
He rarely even throws kicks other than the occassional low kick, and also doesn't string punching combinations together, but rather blasts a sharp left hook (which I would indeed call "crisp") when breaking the clinch.
I'll also state that although his knee to the body could be a key to victory, he's also been caught in midst of unleashing it because he drops his hands.
check out how overeem reacts to being rushed with punches by Feitosa, literally turning his back and retreating towards the corner. That's probably not the best strategy against Rogers
"Rogers is a big strong guy, and Overeem won't bully him around, "
I think he probably will. A much smaller Alistair threw the 245lb judo/jambo Kharitonov to the ground hard enough to dislocate his shoulder or whatever. Just because Fedor didn't completely have his way with Rogers doesn't mean Alistair won't.
Of course with that said, Rogers hits hard and Alistair has thus far pretty much ALWAYS come up short against good opponents.
Like I said on another thread, both guys have very dangerous strikes, but both are also very over-rated (imo). Alistair seems to have the massive advantage on paper, with his takedowns, subs, and varied (and presumably higher level) striking; but unlike Rogers, he has also been beaten (and, frankly, wrecked) many times.
