News broke earlier this week that Alistair Overeem had been charged with battery of a female in Las Vegas the weekend of UFC 141 and his fight with Brock Lesnar. The charges revolved around Overeem shoving the woman in the face “causing her to stumble back.”
While details beyond that have been sketchy, UFC president Dana White did discuss the situation briefly following the UFC 143 pre-fight press conference.
“I don’t think he’s in that much trouble,” White expressed after Thursday’s press conference. “This isn’t a situation where he beat somebody up, I don’t think that’s the case.
“He had to use the restroom, this is my knowledge of what happened, [and] security was going to take him. He said, ‘I don’t need security,’ and sure enough he goes over there, and his side of the story is some lady started yelling at him and swinging at him and everything else.”
There’s obviously a big gap between going over to the bathroom and a lady randomly yelling and swinging and “everything else” and that’s where the entire story really lies.
But Dana likely isn’t wrong in suggesting that Alistair isn’t in “that much trouble” as this seems like a situation where the charges will be reduced significantly once the matter ends up in court. That’s just the way these things tend to play out and I’d be shocked if Overeem ever served a day of the potential six months in jail he faces. It is much more likely that he sees a small fine and that’s the end of things.
White also said that he fully plans on going ahead with Overeem facing Junior dos Santos for the UFC heavyweight title and does not expect this situation to impact that bout in any way.