Alistair Overeem released by UFC

Anyone familiar with my sports talking and rants on here knows that I am not a fan of Overeem. I feel that he is Over(rated)eem and his position in the top 10 is completely undeserved and exists purely because of the lack of depth that the heavyweight division contains in UFC currently.

I think that it is toughest to find heavyweight fighters of all the divisions but this is based only on the fact that the "old guard" still remains in the top 10 despite having extremely lackluster records in recent years. The only W's on Alistair's record in recent years are against opponents that you almost certainly haven't even heard of and I think it is because of his physique and possible a bit because of his nationality that Alistair has been kept around this long. He is NOT a top contender and probably should have elected to retire a long time ago. Well, at least as far as UFC is concerned, Dana White and the top brass have taken this decision making out of the hands of Overeem.

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_{He looks like he can whallop his opponents, but anytime it is a good opponent, the opposite happens}

There was a time when Alistair was to be feared and I can't pinpoint exactly where that changed but I think it was sometime in the mid two thousand teens. After getting badly concussed a couple of times it started to look like the big man was simply too glass jawed to really be much of a threat. In the ring, Alistair seemed to be aware of this and any time that the S**T hit the fan, he would cower, cover-up, run away, and eventually succumb to a TKO by punches. This of course was unless he was fighting against someone who probably shouldn't be in the UFC anyway and is a flash in the pan as far as their contract is concerned.

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_{This is how all of his "big fights" in the past 5 years or so have ended}

I have believed for a long time that White and co were only keeping Alistair around because of the fact that his name is well-known because he has been a part of the game for nearly 2 decades and everyone recognizes the name. It is only recently that his presence in a fight has just become a foregone conclusion and if we were to put him in the ring with basically anyone else in the top 5 they would absolutely destroy him.

At some point Overeem should probably be concerned about his own long-term health as well because I don't think it is good for a person to be concussed this many times in their life. I reckon we'll find out about it in the next 10 years or so. It is one of the risks of getting involved in the sport and I would be willing to bet that the contracts are written in a way that prevents UFC from being held responsible for this. For me it seems inevitable that a lot of these fighters are going to have very serious physical and psychological issues later in life... but I guess we will have to wait and see.

It remains to be seen if any other promotion will be interested in Alistair, but at 40 years of age it seems unlikely. He had a good run, but it is time to hang up the gloves pal. Bellator is the only organization with any sort of real money to throw around and they recently stated that they are no longer interested in being the retirement league for ex UFC stars.

I think it would be in Overeem's best interests to enjoy the fame his name still carries, perhaps open a gym and work on training others. He still has some skills and knowledge that would be very useful to other potential fighters, he just isn't capable of utilizing these skills himself on an elite level anymore.