Former PRIDE mainstay Valentijn Overeem (28-25) and former K-1 fighter Ray Sefo (2-0) meet in a Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix reserve bout on the main card of Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva.
How do these guys stack up?
Overeem: 34 years old, 6’3″
Sefo: 39 years old, 6’0″
What have they done lately?
Overeem: W Cătălin Zmărăndescu (KO), W Tengiz Tedoradze (KO), L Rafal Dabrowski (SUB)
Sefo: W Kevin Jordan (TKO), W Min-Soo Kim (KO)
How did these guys get here?
Valentijn Overeem is the older brother of Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem. He began his MMA career in 1996, winning his first four bouts. In the early portion of his career Overeem fought mostly in the Rings promotion, facing such names as Gilbert Yvel, Kiyoshi Tamura, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. When he debuted in PRIDE at PRIDE 14 in 2001, Valentijn had compiled a 18-9 record. Unfortunately, from that point he has only gone 10-16. Overeem has managed to win two consecutive bouts by knockout and with a few breaks going his way he could find his way into the tournament as an injury replacement.
Ray Sefo had a solid but somewhat unspectacular career as a kickboxer in the K-1 promotion. He made the move to mixed martial arts with a KO of Min-Soo Kim in 2005 but did not fight MMA again until 2009 winning a strange fight with Kevin Jordan. How he will fare against top competition is still an unknown.
Why should you care?
I couldn’t blame you if you don’t. Overeem’s best days are behind him and Ray Sefo is a 39 year old with almost zero MMA experience. Still, the odds are high that this ends in a KO one way or the other. I don’t imagine this will go the full three rounds.