Alistair Overeem Receives New Opponent At UFC St. Petersburg
Alistair Overeem has received a new opponent at the upcoming UFC St. Petersburg event.
He was originally supposed to fight Alexander Volkov at this event but Volkov had to pull out. Now, the former title contender will take on Aleksei Oleinik in the heavyweight bout headliner. Originally, Oleinik was scheduled to fight Walt Harris in May but that fight got scrapped.
The Las Vegas-based promotion is now looking to get a new opponent for Harris at this event. The news was first reported by ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, who wrote the following on his official Twitter account:
“Aleksei Oleinik vs. Alistair Overeem is the new main event for UFC Fight Night St. Petersburg on April 20, per sources. Overeem’s original opponent Alexander Volkov recently withdrew. Oleinik was scheduled to fight Walt Harris on 5/4. Harris will get a new foe.”
In his last fight, Overeem finished Sergey Pavlovich in the co-headliner of UFC Beijing. The event went down in November 2018 at Cadillac Arena in Beijing, China. UFC’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass, aired the entire show.
Overeem is 3-2 in his last five fights and this win snapped a two-fight losing streak. He suffered a TKO loss to Francis Ngannou at UFC 218. Overeem was viciously knocked out by the rising contender in the first round of their heavyweight bout. In his fight before UFC Beijing, he suffered a TKO loss to Blaydes at UFC 225.
UFC St.Petersburg is set to take place on Saturday, April 20, 2019 at Gazprom Arena in St.Petersburg, Russia. The main and preliminary card will air on ESPN+. Here is the updated card:
Alexander Volkov vs. Alistair Overeem
Islam Makhachev vs. Arman Tsarukyan
Sergey Pavlovich vs. Marcelo Golm
Ivan Shtyrkov vs. Devin Clark
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Antonina Shevchenko
Krzysztof Jotko vs. Alen Amedovski
Preliminary Card (ESPN+)
Movsar Evloev vs. Seung Woo Choi
Sultan Aliev vs. Keita Nakamura
Alexander Yakovlev vs. Teemu Packalen
Marcin Tybura vs. Shamil Abdurakhimov
Gadzhimurad Antigulov vs. Michał Oleksiejczuk
Magomed Mustafaev vs. Rafael Fiziev
