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Talk Radio: Discussing a strategy that Alistair Overeem could use to defeat Fedor Emelianenko
By Zach Arnold | May 21, 2010
From Jordan Breen’s radio show last Tuesday:
“If I’m going to sort of script a way for Alistair Overeem to beat Fedor Emelianenko, I think it would, I don’t want to say it has to be on the feet but it’s most likely it’s going to be on the feet. Alistair Overeem, you know I spent a lot of time pre-Brett Rogers bringing up like hey, you’re forgetting about this guy’s ground game, but I don’t see him on the ground extended period of time with Fedor having a ton of success. Fedor’s guard is surprisingly good, very very active, great fleet swift hips. I don’t see Overeem really wanting to play that game too long. If there’s a chance at a scramble where he can get on top, throw some hammer fists, get back up, probably in his best interest but Fedor has a great sweep game, a great great flexible guard that he can submit guys with, it doesn’t seem like the area you want to play around in. I mean, again, with Fedor Emelianenko you kind of have to choose your poison since he’s an extremely well-rounded fighter but I do think on the feet with the reach advantage, considerable power, that the potential to cut Fedor up, which you know Fedor fans always seem angry when you bring it up like, “Oh, try to beat him like a man!” but you know, you got to take what you can get.
“I think on the feet’s probably the best way. A lot of people have just asked how I handicap the fight. I do think Fedor Emelianenko would be able to beat Alistair Overeem. I think his head movement is extremely underrated. I think his ability to react to strikes in general is underrated. You know, a couple of people asked in e-mail why don’t people ever try to leg kick Fedor? You know he’s got that flat stance you talk about, can’t people leg kick him? His reflexes are stupidly good for a heavyweight. If you watch the Mirko Cro Cop fight, Mirko Cro Cop tries to leg kick him and Fedor’s able to check them expertly so quickly without even remotely getting off balance, it’s actually staggering. So I think it’s a tough match-up for Alistair Overeem because I think Fedor will be able to avoid and dodge a lot of the strikes that we normally see Overeem connect with against lesser opposition and I do think that just, bam, one right overhand or something like that could be you know Overeem on the ground, a little flurry, and that’s it because once a guy hits Overeem hard, it’s still hard to believe that he’s going to be able to recover since it’s never been part of his repertoire. And the last time, as I mentioned he got hit substantially in any combat sports field was by Badr Hari at the K-1 World GP and he got up, got hit again, and went down and that was it. So yeah, I would favor Fedor Emelianenko in the fight. I do think he’ll land something on the feet and be able to get Overeem on the deck and finish him off that way but if you’re looking for a way for Overeem to have success, certainly just pressuring Fedor Emelianenko and trying to avoid the right hand while putting strikes on him is probably the most effective way at least because going to the ground with him just seems like a more worrisome proposition.”
As for how Strikeforce and Showtime could do a better job promoting a fight between Overeem and Fedor and heat things up…
I think it would be in [Strikeforce’s] best interest, I mean I have something here about sort of the ratings that came in (for the St. Louis show on Showtime), they weren’t super-duper impressive, but if they can get that in July, if they can get July fight, I really do think it would be in their best interest if they could get him up against, even if it’s not Antonio Silva, just some decent heavyweight to get Overeem on the air because I think he’s an easy character to buy into between the scar on his face, his physique, the way that he fights, the charming accent and the way he has conversations with people, I definitely think people… like it’s easy to see why Overeem’s become so popular since his move up to heavyweight and it’s not something germane to MMA fans. I think casual audience, if they were able to see that would kind of pick it up quickly so I do think if they want to build Overeem/Emelianenko into something really big, it is in their best interest to try to get that July spot on CBS and cook something nice up for Overeem because I do think that if a more general public saw him in action and in full effect the way that everyone else has, they would get on board as well.”
And right on cue, DREAM announced Alistair Overeem for their July event in Japan. All the talk that Overeem and his camp had about wanting to fight in America and for Strikeforce in the Summer sure went by the wayside quickly when K-1 offered money, didn’t it? That was too easy of a call for me to make. I still fully believe that any of the matches involving Fedor, Overeem, or Josh Barnett in the triangle will happen in Japan. Strikeforce could air the fights on tape delay or live on Showtime and it would allow the promotion to have DREAM/K-1 pick up the fighter salaries.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
This might be a little belated but even though I often disagree with your opinions on certain topics, I gotta give you a lot of credit for the work you’ve been doing on here lately from the interview transcripts to the longer articles and as always the news links, just really top-notch work.
Anyway, I also believe that the best thing for marketability is to get Alistair on CBS against someone before he fights Fedor. Alistair is an incredibly marketable fighter. He has a great, unique look, talks well, has the presence of a star, and actually backs all of that up with being a fantastic fighter. The only issue of course is who he would actually fight. The way I see it, the following names would be the best/only picks for Alistair to fight;
– Josh Barnett
– Pedro Rizzo
– Tim Sylvia (Should he beat Ivan Putski today)
– Mark Coleman
– Antonio Silva
Obviously, Barnett would be the absolute best guy for the job due to his stature but with him already scheduled to fight in July, the legal issues of him fighting in the states, the possibility of him winning and killing their money fight, and really the lack of name value he has to a casual audience is enough to make that not worth going after.
Pedro Rizzo, in my opinion, would be one of the better choices as he’s coming off two straight wins, was a pretty big star at one point in the UFC, and with his style is either going to win or lose in spectacular fashion against Alistair. He’s also tied up in July, unfortunately.
Tim Sylvia and Mark Coleman are actually spurned from a thought I had that perhaps they could push a storyline of sorts of Alistair Overeem defeating Fedor’s past opponents en route to facing him. Both Sylvia and Coleman are pretty big name fighters and don’t realistically pose an overwhelming threat to Alistair. The downside to both is that neither would really be legitimate as title challengers and their asking price might be a little too steep.
Finally, Antonio Silva is likely the best choice as he already fights for Strikeforce and is coming off a win however I don’t believe he is deserving of a title shot, so at very best this would have to be a non-title match in my opinion.
Of course, if Alistair does end up fighting in Japan, unless it’s against one of the aforementioned names, I dunno if fitting a fight taped in another country in a ring with different gloves and so on would be the best idea on a CBS show. I wonder if it would just confuse the casual audience watching.
I see it almost in the same way as the Shogun strategy against Machida, and sort-of as the strategy somebody’s going to use to beat Anderson Silva one day. You just can’t come in wildly against patient, disciplined fighters who love to counter-punch. You have to beat them at their own game. Overeem is obviously a very technically sound striker, almost certainly moreso than Fedor. But as you said, Fedor’s reflexes are so good, and he is so patient, that if Overeem tries to swarm Fedor and swoop in for the kill then Fedor will find that one opening like he does against everybody.
I think Alistair would have the best chance in the clinch. He should be able to muscle Fedor around a little bit and maybe land one of those knees. Still I think it’s much more likely that Fedor catches him with one his hooks or uppercuts.
I’m not a big MMA-math guy. But Rogers tossed Fedor around like a ragdoll on the ground and Overeem tossed Rogers around like a ragdoll. I don’t think Overeem will have much trouble on the ground with Fedor.
If the fight is in a cage I think Fedor has a real chance of ending up like Rogers did or like Mir did against Lesnar.
I think if this fight does happen (and I bet it won’t) that Fedor’s management tries to get it in a ring.
Overeem is also a much better tactical strike than Arlovski and appears to have a longer reach. Arlovski was doing a great job keeping Fedor at bay and picking him apart before that ill-advised flying knee.
If Dream/K-1 makes any combination of Fedor/Ubereem/Barnett happen, how could Showtime air the fight when HDNet has the exclusive US broadcast rights for Dream/K-1?
Ed. — $$$$$$$. Buy the rights from HDNet and give HDNet some publicity on Showtime.
I’m gonna try to use some HTML tags here, so my apologies if this fails miserably.
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I’m not a big MMA-math guy. But Rogers tossed Fedor around like a ragdoll on the ground and Overeem tossed Rogers around like a ragdoll. I don’t think Overeem will have much trouble on the ground with Fedor.
I love the continuing and growing transformation the Rogers/Fedor fight has underwent from a spirited effort from Rogers to Rogers somehow dominating a fight he was nearly finished five-six times in. Rogers threw Fedor around like a rag doll? Is this before or after he was completely unable to do anything effective in the clinch, thrown to the ground like a rag-doll (similarly to how Alistair did to him, in fact), or taken down easily? What exactly are you basing your opinion off of? The only thing that resembled any sort of grappling edge was the sweep, which if you’ve taken any BJJ classes you’d know that when applying a Kimura from a top position, your options are either pull the shoulder off the mat or sweep yourself into guard to finish it. If the shoulder, elbow, and hand are all flat against the canvas and you cannot lift the shoulder, you cannot finish the hold from that position. Rogers is a big guy so Fedor attempted to pull guard and finish it from there. Credit to Rogers for escaping, but that was not him sweeping an unsuspecting Fedor, that was Fedor attempting to finish a Kimura.
With that, the assumption that Overeem would have no trouble with Fedor on the ground is ludicrous. Fedor is one of the most versatile fighters on the ground in the history of mixed martial arts. Off his back he has incredible submissions and sweeps, from top position he has probably the nastiest ground and pound in the history of the sport and, again, incredible submissions. Don’t get me wrong, Alistair is very good at submissions and is very strong but to assume he, or anyone, could dominate Fedor on the ground is, at best, a complete lack of understanding of history, and at worst, a shameless denial of it.
Overeem is also a much better tactical strike than Arlovski and appears to have a longer reach. Arlovski was doing a great job keeping Fedor at bay and picking him apart before that ill-advised flying knee.
Have you actually watched the fights you’re talking about? Arlovski was definitely very fluid but to say that he was picking Fedor apart in the first two minutes of a fight when none of his punches really landed flush is a bit of an overstatement.
I will say that Alistair does pose a lot of problems as a striker to anyone in the division and I do believe him to be the biggest threat to Fedor out there (above Brock, Carwin, and Cain for sure). But, with that said, there is no need to overplay Alistair’s strengths. His abilities stand on their own without making baseless assumptions. At the end of the day, Alistair is a guy who poses a world of problems on the feet for Fedor but anybody who says he would be able to dominate Fedor on the ground probably hasn’t seen him fight. Chances are, if the fight went to the ground, Fedor’s taking the win.
“I love the continuing and growing transformation the Rogers/Fedor fight has underwent from a spirited effort from Rogers to Rogers somehow dominating a fight he was nearly finished five-six times in. Rogers threw Fedor around like a rag doll?”
Get out of my head!!!!! LOL
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the aforesaid meme and wanted to pull my hair out. There’s actually people that think that Rogers won the 1st round, which I find comical. Rogers didn’t get destroyed in 30 seconds but somehow people have decided he “dominated” Fedor – I really invite people to rewatch the fight…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-QZwUOvth0&feature=related
Rogers did positive things, but the movement of people trying to discredit Fedor because he doesn’t fight in the UFC is getting to be insane.
People creaming over Overeem tossing around Rogers seem to have blacked out from their mind the fact that Fedor did this at will as well…which should be far more impressive considering the size difference, but I digress.