Given that he has a dominant win over Fedor Emelianenko on his resume, it’s hard to say that Antonio Silva’s knockout of Alistair Overeem may very well have been the most satisfying win of his career. Following pre-fight talk and a ring walk by Overeem that seemed to suggest all he thought he had to do was show up and his hand would get raised, Silva fought a smart fight, even if it meant giving up the first two rounds.
He didn’t give Overeem much space when he wanted to open up on the feet and did a solid job off his back not letting Overeem get much offense going on the ground either. Then, in round three, Silva came out looking for the knockout and he got it.
Silva talked about it with Fuel TV following the fight:
“He didn’t respect me for a long time – in a lot of interviews. He talked a lot of [beep] about me. In the press conference I said to him, ‘hey I make you respect me.’”
…
“I waited for the second and third round. I know he doesn’t have a lot of cardio or have a good heart. I know he won the first round. He used the ground and pound in the second and I said, ‘let’s go, push me harder.’ I know he was going to tire in the third round.”
While the fight served as a yet another moment of Silva paying for people putting him in the “sacrificial lamb” position, it also reminded us of a very simple fact…Alistair Overeem’s heavyweight resume is pretty thin.
Obviously his win over Brock Lesnar at UFC 141 was impressive and over a big name on a big stage. But Lesnar was coming off a more than one year layoff (his second such layoff in three years) and major surgery after a second serious bout with diverticulitis. He’d also been brutalized by Cain Velasquez and Shane Carwin — though he won the Carwin bout with a second round comeback submission — in his previous two bouts.
Before Lesnar, Overeem picked up another solid win when he beat Fabricio Werdum by decision. But that was a brutally ugly fight with neither guy really doing much of anything, and Werdum having more success than most expected in the striking game. In short: a good win, but not an impressive performance.
Past that Overeem’s biggest win since the full-time heavyweight move is….Mark Hunt (in the middle of a six fight losing streak)? Todd Duffee? Brett Rogers?
And it’s not entirely unfair to look at the failed drug test that forced him out of a fight with Junior dos Santos and say that you question if he picked up any of those wins “by the rules.” Once a guy fails a test for a 14-1 T/E ratio, he doesn’t exactly get the benefit of the doubt.
It’s not that Overeem doesn’t have talent, he clearly has a ton of it. But Bigfoot reminded us of many of Overeem’s flaws while Alistair acted like he deserved the win just by being there. I don’t know if anyone has ever done enough in their career to think that way, but if there is someone out there that has, it isn’t Overeem. That was made plainly clear last night.
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