Dana White confirms Alistair Overeem's removal from Strikeforce Heavyweight GP
Posted on July 18, 2011, 09:45 PM by Joey Santosus
UFC President Dana White has confirmed Alistair Overeem's removal from the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, but says the champ will remain under contract with the organization.
White verified the reports with MMAJunkie.com, explaining that Overeem will not be released and should be expected to return to action once his broken toe has healed.
"Sept. 10th was the date Showtime wants us to go, so it's the date we've got to go," White said. "It's unfortunate that Alistair is unavailable, but situations like this are why there are alternates in the tournament."
Overeem was considered an early favorite heading into the tournament and defeated Fabricio Werdum via unanimous decision to secure his place in the semifinals, where he was expected to square off with Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva later this year.
Stepping in to replace "The Reem" will reportedly be rapidly rising prospect Daniel Cormier, who picked up his eighth consecutive victory last month, defeating veteran Jeff Monson in a lopsided three-round affair. The two-time Olympic wrestler will face his toughest test to date in Silva, but should pose some interesting problems for the six-foot-four Brazilian.
While the Septermber 10th date has been confirmed by Strikeforce officials, no venue has been announced for the still untitled event.
Photo: UFC President Dana White at a post-fight press conference at UFC 100 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on July 11, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Francis Specker
Comments
whats up with Overeem, wast he suppose to proof his the best in the world and then beat cain...lol.. this guy missing out to silence the critics and proof he is the best..or so ive heard lol
As much as this sucks no one man is bigger than the tournament, if thats the date showtime says they will broadcast the event then you have to eat this sandwich.
Am i the only one who still doesn't understand this guys problem with Zuffa?
now now nobody likes to be called names, treat other how u would want to be treated son.
beat cain? haha
its Zuffa that pulled him out and if they pulled him
out means he has a fight in the ufc sometime this
year, basically made him available for the fight..cause most
likely he would of won against Bigfoot and if he did would of set him up
Verdum or Barnett which ppl would diffently want to see so getting out of that would of been hell so do it now no issues and after Dallas
we will find out who he fights
Doesn't Zuffa have the say in this? Common, letting Showtime make decisions like this that f**s everything up for him and especially the FANS! Man this BLOWS!
Overeem is already the best heavyweight in the world. He doesn't need the Grand Prix to prove that.
As good as this tounrment is, it just lost a big amount of credibility. Whoever the GP is, it will always be noted he never had to go through Overeem.
must be busy cycling out his horsesteaks
oh and that excuse of "not enough time" doest work, his had a plenty of time to get ready, since big foot beat silva and its been months, + he knew he was going to have to fight before that... if he didt train and stay fit then his not taking the tournament seriously or his job imo
what are u talking about he didnt pull out zuffa made him unaviliable
means Zuffa took him out not Reem, Overeem has never refused a fight
no no.... Showtime gave a date, Zuffa gave Overeem the date, and overreem refused, therefore making zuffa to pull him out.... everybody blaming Zuffa but its overeem who backed out knowing he would eventually have to fight since the tournament begun
Sucks Reem isnt in the tourny anymore...really looking forward to see him fight Big Foot n the winner of Barnett/Sergie, with him gone the tounry isn't that good anymore imo b4 the winner could arguably be the best HW in the world but not anymore
Sounds like Allistair doesnt respond well to being threatened .. Dana will have to learn a new method of operation.
Love to see Reem tell that molerat Dana to go F_ _ _ himself!
When will Mr Dana White realize that he's dealing with grown men and not kids? This guy is bad for MMA IMO.
That is a pretty ignorant comment,Dana made mma what it is today. How bad can he be?
Too much of a good thing can easily turn bad. We just gotta take the bad with the good and hope for the best.
LOL @T666, Damn dude. Relax. Try and look at it from another point of view as we probably dont know the FULL story. Just like the article implies, Showtime set the date and maybe couldnt budge until, let's say, December or Jan. Which would piss the majority of fans off, right?
In Zuffa's eyes ,What's gonna win? - Wait THAT much longer ? or go with a date that will please the fans and give the main event guys just under 2 months to get ready?
You have no clue how the meeting went between Zuffa and Showtime. I assume your angry because Overeems not fighting. I'm a huge Overeem fan but when it comes to fighting, the mentality of most fighters is, if you dont have any major injuries, then between 6-8 weeks is ample time to get prepared for a bout regardless of your opponent.
Many other fighters would have taken that fight.
Sometimes, in any sport, people get put in these positions and Overeem still chose not to fight.
Drawing a comparison to tennis is also ridiculous because like all other major sports, the events at which you can participate in usually run over a calender year so the athlete generally knows way in advance when they can participate. i.e Wimbledon, US open. MMA is different as you should of realised. And besides, Overeem doesnt lose his curren belt. So, take it easy bruvs.
Dude shut the **** up nobody cares what you have to say about Zuffa, They control the UFC and SF get over it. They are the best MMA org. in the world and MADE MMA WHAT IT IS TODAY! GET THE **** OVER IT
good post
The way i read it on another site was that he was out of SF, but now i know he is only out of the GP, i don't really care, he was likely to win it and then what? who would he face then, the way Dana has been talking about him going into the UFC didn't sound like it was likely, not straight after the GP, anyway. So give him some time to heal up and then he can have a fight against someone else and then face the winner of the GP for the SF HW championship.
Fight against someone else and then face the winner of the GP for the SF HW championship?
You do realize he's the SF HW Champ and has nothing to prove anymore in SF right?.. there is no one for him to fight other than 1 or 2 that are in the GP right now. Zuffa needs to feed him to the sharks @ UFC HW and let him prove his worth.. PERIOD!
I wanted to see "The Reem' fight the BigFoot in the GP, but if Silva wins the tournament, then he will ge a shot at Overeem anyway. That was something that I didn't understand about the GP; the winner would get to challenge Overeem for his belt. If Alistar won the GP, then who would challenge him for the title after all was said and done. He was not originally slated to participate in the tournament, but he insisted on being a part of it because he didn't want to sit by and not fight while awaiting the tournament results. Bottom line..... If Silva wins tournament, then Overeem will still get to kick his ass a little later down the line.
actually i feel as him being strikeforce champ he has a lot to prove..why is he afraid to defend the belt? he begged coker to be put in this tournament when the original idea was for there to be a tournament championship..now what kind of champion begs to be in a tournament rather then defend his belt? i mean he won the belt what almost 4 years ago and defended it ONE!!!! time..
I guess he may have thought that if he defended his belt while the GP was going on, it may have made it seem unnecessary to even have the tournament. After all the winner of the GP is to get a title shot. Why are these fighters competing for a shot when someone else is fighting the champion for the title while thGP is running it's course? I think it would depreciate the value the GP has built up over the past 7 months. Overeem has not defended his Strikeforce belt often, but he has been staying busy. He won the K-1 championship last year, and he's also fought on some Dream cards in Japan.
yeah that is my problem with overeem..he is winning all these belts and talking about how he is the only guy to hold all of these belts..yet he isn't defending any of the belts he has. a true champion will defend his belt and not worry about other things...this is the only champion i know that refuses to defend his belt...
September 10th
Ur ****in stupid...
iwas gonna read all t666 comment but its too long and full of worms and shet i am lost in the point of reading. i had lost all interest in the tournament there was supposed to be alot of good match up after the reem and bigsilva fight and also this was gonna be the deciding point for whom cain or jds fights. thank u dana and zuffa
Why is it that it seems as if Dana is blowing this off as no big deal? Kind of seems like a really big deal to me but I guess that's just my opinion. Something else is going on here.
Dana doesn't sound like himself. Usually he's like "I want it this way so we do it this way" and not "they want it that way so we have to do it that way."
Ok Weak me but I think Overeem is scare of Bigfoot ever since he didn't do very well against Werdum.
I think this may work out better in the long run. The GP lost momentum when the second round of fights got pushed back and could have been rescued if the Reem or Werdum put on exciting fight but that didn't happen. So now the door is open for the winner to face Reem for the title but if he moves over to the UFC even better
Now he is out from the tournement , hes free to go to UFC i asume?
I never heard of no injury after his fight with Werdum? Come Ubereem your lucky this isn't a one night only Grand Prix or u'd h fighting 2-3 times in one night! Lol. This is such a idiotic way to deal with the situation from all sides and parties IMO. Showtime needs to take a
Chill pill and give Allistar his extra month he needs to recoup and get in a good training camp because pulling him out when it not exactly necessary is just dumb business and ruins the whole grand prix almost and let's all loyal fans who been eagerly waiting all year for these fights to happen. Bs just bs!
Ridiculous, Once there was a HW GP, with 4 impressive HW's left, oh wait we just pulled the champ ???
This sucks, they made the deals already and now they change the card ??
If showtime needs a fight card make one, don't mess up one of the biggest GP's to date.
I'm gonna be hating zuffa and showtime for this for a long time.
Overeem is just being a bum. It's July, I could train for a fight with Bigfoot from here till then and be ready. I'm 6'5, 287lbs atm, making 265 would be cake, I'd just have to stop eating the cake though.
Champions shouldn't ever be allowed to back down or make excuses saying they don't have enough time. How much time do you need to throw fists at someone?
I think there's something bigger going on behind the scenes. Alistair is free now, once JDS and Cain bang it out to see a winner, Alistair gets him. He still is the Strikeforce HW Champion. He should of been at the top of the heap and had all those other fighters fighting to fight him for the gold.
I think it's better for Overeem. Being the champ in a tourney without the championship on the line seems like just killing time; now they can at least give the winner a titleshot and/or put Reem in some titlefights in the meantime.
This toe story stinks. I'm not sure whether it stinks litteraly, but it surely stinks figuratively. There hasn't been any news on a toe injury with Overeem. All I know is that Strikeforce GP is bad for UFC. UFC is more important to Zuffa then Strikeforce so it wouldn't hurt if some hype is removed from the GP by taking out Overeem. Dana surely didn't look concerned about the removal of Overeem. There is a hidden agenda. Don't be surprised if Strikeforce will diminish totally and their best fighters cross over to UFC. This will further strengthen UFC monopoly and the loosers are us and the UFC fighters. Dana, you can suck my big toe!!
Honestly, I didn't think he should have been in the tournament from the start. He is the belt owner, and the winner of the tourney should fight him in the end for the belt, thats how it should hav worked
That is how it should have worked but they spread it out so much that the champion would sit on the side for a year awaiting a winner. They could have put it together better, but I think that they spread it out to make more money from the tourney. It didn't make sense to me either bud.