Alistair Overeem: “Cro Cop is a douchebag”

One day I might get around to writing a list of my favourite fighters, and when I do, Alistair Overeem will definitely be on there.

I don’t rate Overeem as one of the top heavyweights in the world like I do Joachim Hansen as a lightweight – instead I simply admire his style, laid-back personality, affable nature and willingness to step up to fight whoever. His record reads like a who’s who of MMA – he’s fought everyone from Chuck Liddell to Shogun, Sergei Kharitonov to Vitor Belfort, and win or lose he’s always worth a watch.

The reason I’m posting this fight is because Overeem fights Cro Cop tomorrow. We featured Overeem in the mag not too long ago and he was pretty outspoken about Mirko, basically calling him a douchebag and accusing him of dodging him. A few years ago it would been a slaughter but since Gabriel Gonzaga crushed Mirko’s warrior spirit I’d give Overeem more than a decent chance at taking this, especially given how much he has improved in the last few years. Also, he’s young at only 28, yet has a 28-11-0 record. I think even the most fervent Cro Cop nuthuggers would struggle to argue that the Croatian isn’t in the twilight of his career.

For anyone scanning through Overeem’s MMA record and thinking ‘hmm, not that hot’, it’s worth noting that during the period where Overeem was losing more often than not he was actually dealing with a serious neck injury. This bothered him from 2005 right through to his second fight with Kharitonov.

Now he seems to be healed up and he’s back in action. His fight with Mark Hunt was a quick one and not really indicative of what Overeem can do, although his funky keylock from bottom to armbar was about as slick a submission as you’ll ever see.

Instead, watch his tussle with Paul Buentello to see what this flying Dutchman has got to offer. Buentello is a B-class heavyweight at best, but Overeem pretty much toyed with him throughout their fight. The second round slows down a little before the surprise ending, so keep your eyes peeled.

more about “Paul Buentello vs. Alistair Overeem |…“, posted with vodpod

When Tyson stepped in the cage

“So what do I have to do again?”

Back in 2006, the one-off event WCFC did the unthinkable: they put on one of the biggest MMA events in UK history.

They sold out the MEN Arena 13 months before the UFC returned to the UK by way of some ghastly PR, horrific marketing and booking none other than Mike Tyson as a guest referee. You couldn’t pick up a newspaper without there being some mention of the upcoming ‘human dog fight’ or ‘blood sport spectacle’ (both real headlines).

The thousands of fans who turned up to the event had little clue what to expect – few of them even knew what MMA was (this was pre-TUF, I’ll have you know). They were almost entirely beer-soaked Tyson fans, and even though they ended up witness to a pretty decent MMA event featuring fighters such as Alistair Overeem, Terry Etim, Roan Carneiro, Matt Horwich, Din Thomas, Luciano Azevedo and Yuki Sasaki, they seemingly hated every second of it. They booed when the fights went to the mat, they booed when fighters won by submission, they booed at Amir Khan when he was announced as being ringside – the only people to be cheered were Tyson and Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand.

“Tell me Mike, how you gonna defend this?”

The middleweight tournament that took place that night is a bona-fide part of MMA history. But for all the good the event achieved, and to be fair they did put on a decent enough show (on the surface at least), there was so much wrong with it.

The cage padding came off one of the posts, but rather than stop the fight they opened the door and fixed it while the fighters were grappling over the other side of the ring. Leonardo Lucio Nascimento emerged the tournament winner from a strong field only to be handed a replica UFC title belt live on Sky Sports TV.

I wish I still had this event but my copy became corrupted so I had to delete it. It wasn’t just bad, it was plain horrific at times. The commentary team consisted of a capable yet clueless Sky Sports presenter and James Thompson, who couldn’t quite offer the same level of insight as say a Bas Rutten or Joe Rogan. Bas was actually in attendence but as MC for the evening, which he did a great job of.

Stand out fights from the event were Sasaki armbarring a greased-up Rodney Faverus inside one round, Roan Carneiro just about squeezing out decisions over Gregory Bouchelaghem and Matt Horwich but retiring in the tourney finals against Nascimento with a broken foot, Horwich only just surviving a flying armbar from Lithuanian Petras Morkevicius and Luciano Azevedo decisioning a tentative Din Thomas (who was locked into sprawl and brawl mode and seemingly terrified of the Brazilian’s ground game).

The highlight of the evening for all the wrong reasons was when Tyson stepped into the cage as guest referee for a bout between Terry Etim and Spaniard Diego Gonzalez. Admitting to me in front of dozens of reporters at the press conference two day previous that he had absolutely no training as a referee (that got me some very dirty looks and a ‘talking to’ from the promoters after) he looked lost in the cage and was actually being guided by a Dutch referee (whose name I forget) from the other side of the fence.

“Easy money…”

Etim won via triangle, yet Tyson got a bigger cheer than any victorious fighter that night. I heard the former boxer was paid anywhere between 40-60 thousand pounds for what amounted to 59 seconds of refereeing work. This was made all the more laughable when another nameless promoter rang me up and told me he could have had Tyson but for only £10k.

*** UPDATE ***

Thanks to Ben on the Cage Warriors forum, here is the vid of Tyson’s outing in the cage.  Notice how they start the fight with the cage door still open, and barely manage to close it before the two fighters crash into the fence.  Tyson completely misses the tap, and for some reason Ramon Dekkers was there during the post-fight interview promoting his DVD.  Strange.

MMA Photography: Marcus Davis

UFC welterweight fighter and ex-boxer Marcus Davis.  Marcus fights Liverpudlian scrapper Paul Kelly at UFC 89 in October.

Justin Wilcox: BLAF

Photo by Esther for Combat Lifestyle

If you frequent any MMA forums, you’ll have probably seen the acronym BLAF, which stands for ‘Built Like a Fighter’. It’s a light hearted phrase often used as a dig at Dana White, who has been referred to in sycophantic media stories as ‘built like a fighter’.

I was checking out Esther’s pics of the Strikeforce weigh-ins and couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought a bodybuilder had wandered on to the stage by accident, but no, this was lightweight fighter Justin Wilcox, who weighed in dead on 155lb. I’d not heard of Wilcox before, and was excited to see he’s going to be fighting Ishida, who I think is frankly awesome (so does Esther, who mentions getting all giddy about meeting him and Kawajiri here).

If Justin can fight half as good as his physique suggests, it’s going to be a great fight, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s just going to rely on his size and strength. Stature-wise, he’s not that much bigger than Ishida (go here for evidence) but I’ve got a feeling when he’s rehydrated and eaten he is going to step in the cage and will be MASSIVE.

MMA Photography: Where I spend my weekends

MMA Photography: Train Hard, Fight Easy

Top UK lightweight Abdul Mohammed, a long time friend of Fighters Only and our first ever cover star, pictured at the Wolfslair.

Abdul has been around for ages. I remember when he first came on the scene back in 2003, he was about as wide as he was tall and he killed everybody with his awesome wrestling. No-one had a clue how to handle it back then. Things have changed a lot in that time, but he’s still slamming victims and tearing shit up.

Abdul recently fought another top UK lightweight in Andre Winner. That contest controversially ended in a draw, and it is rumoured that had Abdul won, he may have been looking at a UFC contract about now.

Take a look at the fight and see for yourself.  If you were a judge, how would you score it?

MMA Photography: Bad Boy

Friday Night Fight: FOTY Contender – Hansen vs Alvarez

This is only the second of my Friday Night Fights, but there will be more, so make sure to keep checking each week for another cracking scrap of some sort.

I’m posting one of my favourite fights of the last year, which I sat down and watched again last night with my friend Gunni. He hadn’t had chance to watch it (he was too busy travelling the world and training with the likes of BJ Penn) so I jumped at the chance to show it to him.

We at Fighters Only are running our first World MMA Awards, and this consistently came up in the nominations process as one of the fan’s top fights of the last year, which is amazing considering it took place in Japan and not that many people will have seen it.

I actually voted for the awesome scrap between Roger Huerta and Clay Guida as my Fight of the Year, but this was my close second. Alvarez is so explosive and hits ridiculously hard, but Hansen’s damn near unstoppable and his jiu-jitsu is so crazy and opportunistic it’s really exciting to watch. I think that’s the thing I like about both Hansen and Alvarez’s styles – they’re just not boring, literally anything can happen – one minute you’ll see suplexes and takedowns, the next you’ll see high kicks, knees and crazy submissions.

Before anyone accuses me of being a Hansen nut-rider, I’ll admit it now. I think he’s the shit, so there. I’ve got no bones about it and I’ve mentioned it before. I like his attitude, I like his awesome celtic sleeve tattoo (not so much the big Jesus on his chest) and I like his fighting style. In a word, Joachim Hansen rocks yo. So does Alvarez, but he doesn’t play shred guitar like the Viking from the home of Black Metal.

Friday Night Fight 1: Dan Hardy vs Hidetaka Monma

The Evan Tanner post

“Find yourself, find yourself.  We keep hearing that concept all the time.  What if you never lost yourself?”  – Evan Tanner (February 11, 1971 – c. September 8, 2008)

I’ve avoided doing the obligatory post on the death of Evan Tanner.  I recently had a bereavement in the family, with the funeral only next week, so I didn’t feel much like reflecting on someone’s life I knew very little about when I had other stuff on my mind.

I’ve met dozens, if not hundreds of fighters in my time, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to have met Evan.  The former UFC middleweight champion was an ‘intriguing’ character.  Ryan at Fightlinker, who was a huge fan of Evan, laid it out best.  His ‘no-bullshit’ post was refreshing in comparison to the fluff pieces that churned out across the various MMA websites.  Evan was open and upfront about his issues, so I see no reason why they should suddenly be forgotten now that he has passed.

I don’ think he let quite everything out, but Tanner was incredibly public with his life.  He journalled his adventures across various websites, and I read them all.  At first, I would read in amazement at the situations he got himself into, how he handled them and what the fallout was.  As time went on, the surprise faded as the adventures got more and more ridiculous and his situation seemed more and more hopeless.  I’m not a sympathetic person by nature, so I never lost any respect for him – if anything, I gained it, as his resilience and fortitude were astonishing.

Aaron and Livia Mello-Fisher, a pair of film makers who put out the movie Potent, filmed an extended interview with Evan at a training centre in Las Vegas not too long before his death.  It is a incredibly insightful video.   Tanner was obviously an intelligent and self-aware man, and it is worth listening to both videos in their entirety.

When I found the videos below, they spurred me into writing this.  I think most people would never consider leaving the world a message for them to reflect upon once they had gone – Evan obviously hadn’t, as he referrs to one day having children who he could teach his values – but as far as memorials go, I find this by far the most fitting.

“I’m always looking for adventure and new stories” – Evan Tanner

MMA Photography: Greg Loughran

Portrait of lightweight Northern Irish MMA fighter Greg Loughran.  Taken in Dublin, May 2007.

Greg is 24 and has got 30 MMA fights to his name.  He is an incredibly modest and humble fighter, and one of the toughest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch fight.