Alistair Overeem is less than a week away from facing former UFC Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdum in a rubber match at UFC 213.
Fellow heavyweight Mark Hunt has accused Overeem of steroid and PED usage in the past and during their fight at UFC 209, now Overeem is responding to those accusations.
“Mark is also one of those veteran fighters, I respect him a lot, but in the end, he’s just a talker,” Overeem said on The MMA Hour. “In the end, I’ve fought him twice. I beat him as a light heavyweight (in 2008), I broke his arm, and I’ve knocked him out as a heavyweight. And actually, both fights, I was not fit. Because the first fight, I’m a light heavyweight fighting a guy — I was 106kg fighting him, who was 135kg. What is that, I’m 235 (pounds), he’s 280? I broke his arm, and that was on short notice. That was on a five-day notice. I got the call Monday; on, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday I was on the plane; and Saturday we fought. Now (at UFC 209), I had a good camp, but I had food poisoning the day before, and I knocked him out. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what he wants from me. I think I’ve shown to the world that I’m the better fighter.”
While Overeem is undefeated against Hunt, the heavyweight has split his two fight series with Werdum.
Overeem also believes that Hunt made those accusations because he got angry that he got knocked out at UFC 209.
“This is a fight sport,” Overeem said. “The only thing that matters — words don’t hurt. Come on, how old are we? The only thing that matters is who walks out of that Octagon or ring, in the case an Octagon, with their hand raised. That’s the only thing that matters. I beat him, I beat him twice, I knocked him out. Maybe it’s still bothering him? I can imagine it’s still bothering him, right? He doesn’t get knocked out often. So yeah, of course, it’s going to bother him. It’s never nice to get knocked out.”
UFC 213 takes place on Saturday, July 8 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
