Alistair Overeem Destroys Tony Sylvester in MMA Mismatch

Alistair Overeem hasn't fought in the United States since winning the Strikeforce heavyweight championship two years ago, but on Saturday he beat an overmatched American, Tony Sylvester, in Golden Glory's Ultimate Glory 11 event in Amsterdam.

Overeem's first-round submission win was short and not particularly good: Overeem landed a hard knee to Sylvester's face, knocked him to the ground, landed a couple of punches, let him back up, and then forced him to tap with a standing guillotine choke. The whole fight lasted just under a minute and a half. Sylvester never went on the offensive at all.

Let's hope Overeem, who has a busy schedule ahead of him, fights some better opponents soon. He might fight again next weekend at Dream 12, although an opponent has not been announced, and he is slated to fight in the K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 Final in December. After that he's finally expected to make his return to the United States and defend the Strikeforce heavyweight belt -- maybe against the best heavyweight in the world, Fedor Emelianenko.

A fight with Fedor would be tremendous, and the K-1 World Grand Prix features the best field of kickboxers in the world, so hopefully we'll get to see Overeem, who improved his professional MMA record to 30-11, test himself against high-quality competition going forward. Sylvester, who falls to 11-3, didn't belong in the same ring with him.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-17-2009 @ 10:33PM

johnnynumber5 said...

If Overeem is healthy enough to fight why isn't he defending his SF title against Fedor?

10-18-2009 @ 12:30AM

aaronmarriedman said...

exactly

10-18-2009 @ 2:01AM

Frank Rizzo said...

He has contracts with other people besides Strikeforce.

His manager Bas Boon pretty much runs Ultimate Glory and he's fought in their events before.
He also has his deals for Dream and K-1.

He's scheduled for 3 more events for them and is booked for the rest of the year he'll probably be back in Strikeforce by February or March of next year.

If you people were really interested in what was going on with Overeem you'd know this, but the truth is you people just want to bitch about something.

10-18-2009 @ 5:16AM

@Frank Rizzo

Don't be so defensive. I think you may be a little confused because the reason Overeem didn't/hasn't defend his title was because of a hand injury he got in a bar room brawl. It's obvious he isn't still injured because within the last 30 or so days he's done a K-1 & MMA match. I think it's a legitimate question to ask about Overeem ... He's also contracted to Strike Force and the point is with Fedor making his SF debut one would think that an Overeem vs Fedor is the best fight M-1 & SF can put together.

Overeem needs to defend that title soon or vacate it like Cung Le so we can have a champion willing to fight top contenders.

10-18-2009 @ 5:20PM

Lem said...

Dude what are you talking about first you ask why hasn't Overeem defended his title and then in your next post you say he hurt his hand and that's why he hasn't defended it, but now is healthy.
Sounds like you're confused.

Truth of the matter is when Alistair won his Strikeforce title they had no one for him to fight at heavyweight so they welcomed him to fight in Japan to stay active then over a year later Strikeforce buys Elite's contracts and gets fighters on their roster for him to fight then he does injure his hand and cancels the fight with Rogers this past June so Rogers fights Arlovski.

Then Strikeforce signs Fedor and in the meantime Overeem is healthy but guess what now his other contractual obligations have taken over and he's going to fill them out for the remainder of the year with Dream and K-1 and so Fedor will fight Rogers with the winner meeting Overeem next spring. It's not that big a deal and Alistair hasn't backed out of any fights with Strikeforce other than the 1 with Rogers this past June.

So you think because he dropped out of 1 fight the company that had no one for him to fight for over a year should strip his title? That's crazy.

10-19-2009 @ 12:02AM

richardbikle said...

i thought overeem had a title defense fight scheduled and pulled out because he got into a bar fight... so the question remains why doesnt he defend his belt if he's good enough to fight elsewhere. legit question bassy.
doesnt matter, fedor is going to own him and the belt very shortly.

10-19-2009 @ 4:06PM

The point remains that if he is healthy enough to fight he should be fighting guys like Rogers, Werdum or Fedor and not no talent hacks like Thompson. It's a completely legitimate question and to me it looks like he (and I hate saying this about any fighter) is ducking fighting the guys here in the states.

Do some homework before you come in here and put people on blast. Just because you are an Overeem fanbiy doesn't mean everyone else is should fall into line.

Overeem would rather fight James Thompson than Rogers or Fedor. Why even have a belt if the guy won't defend it? Overeem called out Cro-Cop after he smashed Mirko with illegal low blows so he isn't above legitimate criticism when it's obvious he would rather fight in Holland or Japan than in North America.

10-18-2009 @ 5:23PM