Stipe Miocic vs. Alistair Overeem Headlines UFC Cleveland
It looks like newly-crowned UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic isn’t going to have to wait long for his his next opponent, and the fight will go down in a place close to home as well.
News just arrived from that Miocic will take on surging contender Alistair Overeem in the main event of September 10’s UFC 203 pay-per-view (PPV) event from his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto broke the news on Twitter tonight:
Stipe Miocic vs. Alistair Overeem heavyweight title fight booked for UFC 203 on Sept. 10 in UFC’s first trip to Cleveland.
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) May 26, 2016
Miocic famously knocked out former champion Fabricio Werdum to rip the belt from “Vai Cavalo” in his native country of Brazil, and after he brought a title home to Cleveland, he’ll now try to defend his championship in the reverse scenario.
He’ll have his hands full with the bulldozing former DREAM, Strikeforce, and K-1 Grand Prix champion Overeem, who has downed four straight opponents including former champions Junior dos Santos and Andrei Arlovski by knockout, the latter of which he just stopped with a jaw-dropping jump kick in the lead bout of May 8’s UFC Rotterdam.
It’s a battle of elite-level strikers that could produce some massive fireworks on the feet. Who is your pick to emerge with the notoriously hard-to-defend UFC heavyweight belt?
