Alistair Overeem: Scared or Arrogant?
Well, we all know by now that the Strikeforce World Heavyweight Champion, Alistair Overeem (35-11-0-1) has been officially cut from the Strikeforce promotion as of Friday night. This being the night before Fedor and Henderson, I am basically shocked to be honest for quite a few different reasons. I think about the possibility of Fedor Emelianenko losing tomorrow night and it makes me sick to my stomach. Strikeforce had this amazing heavyweight tournament and division and now it could very quickly be minus Fedor and Overeem by the end of tomorrow night. In my opinion, that is insane to even think about, but could very easily become a reality.
I am not shocked that Overeem is no longer with Strikeforce, but I am shocked that they did it BEFORE the Fedor fight with Henderson. Strikeforce has already lost Nick Diaz and now this would put the nail in the coffin in my opinion for this organization that we all know is going to die soon anyways. The real question behind this story is obviously who was behind this termination. If I had a guess, which I do, I would definitely say that it was Dana White pulling this string due to his dislike of Overeem to begin with.
Now, despite being an Overeem fan, I have no choice but to ultimately blame this on The Reem himself and I am about to explain why. Alistair already knows that his legacy as one of the great heavyweights in the business is ALREADY in question due to some less than stellar opponents on his record as well as a poor performance in many eyes against Fabricio Werdum last month. With that being the case, it was ultimately up to him to change everyone's mind out there about him. He cannot continue to leave it up to us Reem supporters to keep pushing his name as the #1 or #2 heavyweight in the world. At some point, he was supposed to make this easier on us and he chose NOT to.
Overeem knew that Strikeforce and Zuffa had to make a move here. He was trying to pull the old Nick Diaz “boxing” threat to either get more money on a new deal or a UFC title shot (which still might be the plan). He had one fight left to his deal and recently tried to ALTER the date that the tournament fights were going to go down. He knows DAMN WELL that Showtime has a schedule and when the fights were scheduled, they needed to go down due to the contract with Showtime expiring in February of 2012. There was NO time to waste and he basically knew it.
Overeem had one fight left on his deal which meant that as of LAST WEEK, he had the entire Strikeforce heavyweight division and future held hostage. He could have easily resigned atleast a 2-3 fight deal to save face and get the job done in Strikeforce. Strikeforce was very good to Overeem including letting him keep this world title for THREE years while he fought oversees and never even stepped foot inside a Strikeforce cage to defend his crown. What if Overeem would have fought and DEFEATED Antonio Silva to advance to the tournament finals with his contract expired?
Overeem could have demanded ANY kind of money (which is what he probably has already done), and basically held up the tournament AND the heavyweight division considering he is the champion as well. Lets say Overeem did just that and refused to sign a contract. That means the Grand Prix tournament basically goes down the toilet and becomes worthless (which it kind of already has). Then, also Overeem would hold the belt and could hold that hostage too. Overeem knew this already and that's why he made the ol' “boxing” threat in my opinion and stood up to “the man” over a small time frame in the scheduling. Lets be honest, a month is not THAT long of a difference to just GIVE UP on the tournament for. What was his injury? A TOE INJURY? Really?
My point is that I believe Overeem let his arrogance get the best of him here. He thought he could play “Nick Diaz” type of ball and hold up the entire company hostage. I admit, this would have worked a year ago and we ALL know it. However, with Zuffa calling the shots now, we know that they are not going to budge. They are the giants here, not Overeem. I am a HUGE Overeem fan and it hurts me to know that his legacy will never be what we all wanted it to be. He is going to go BACK oversees and continue to fight cans and end up with a record of 50-11 or some shit like that.
Our fight for Overeem is over...There is nothing more we can do. So I wonder if he ever really wanted to fight some of these big names to begin with. Was he scared to be exposed? Was he REALLY as arrogant as he looks here? So, was it arrogance or fear? I guess we will all find out in the coming days...
Another thought: Did Zuffa cut him from Strikeforce so they can sign him in the UFC? Is this part of the murder of Strikeforce? Wow, that would be a twist...
In case you haven't seen, here is the Video with the BREAKING NEWS of his release...
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