Strikeforce
STRIKEFORCE QUOTABLES: Alistair Overeem refuses Fedor fight in 2010, says co-promoting doesn't allow Strikeforce to make logical fights
Aug 25, 2010 - 7:15:03 PM STRIKEFORCE QUOTABLES: Alistair Overeem refuses Fedor fight in 2010, says co-promoting doesn't allow Strikeforce to make logical fights

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

"No, unfortunately [a fight with Fedor is not possible this year]. The reason is because if I enter the Final 16 and win, I will fight the K-1 Final in December. My decision was made because nothing was certain and Strikeforce and M-1 didn't act fast enough when I made my decision to start K-1 training. Now I read on the internet that Fedor and his management want to fight me all of sudden. Do they really need two months of thinking and negotiating? I think it's a little strange to be honest. If Fedor challenged me right after the fight it would have been something to take in consideration, but the M-1 management started to say that all the polls on several websites stated that people rather have a Fedor vs. Werdum rematch then a fight against me. There we have another lie by M-1 because every poll I have read stated the opposite and showed that everybody want to see Fedor versus me. Check their current poll at their own Web site (laughs).

If you co-promote with people that have their own demands it's hard to make good and logical fights. If you look at another big MMA organization in the States, you can see that they have a clear road map of who's fighting who and which fighters are entitled to get a shot at the championship belt. Having a clear virtual ranking is one of the reasons they are successful because they can hype fights. You can debate if I'm the number one in Strikeforce using results of the past, but the fact remains that Fedor signed with Strikeforce and chose Werdum instead of me. We all know that in every organization Fedor is more than welcome to fight straight for the belt due to his stature and experience, but if his management decided that they would like a tune-up fight and then Werdum before fighting me they are taking a risk. Fighting in a organization is just the same as climbing a ladder. If you lose, you will fall a couple of steps down and if you win you go up. It's not fair to other fighters that are climbing the same ladder. So to make a long story short, I'm the champion, which means I'm number one [in Strikeforce], not based on ranking but because I'm wearing the belt. Number two is clearly Werdum because of his win over Fedor and Antonio Silva. Fedor losing means he's number 3 and Antonio Silva, who came back from a loss against Werdum by defeating Arlovski is clearly the number 4. So in that case, Fedor should fight Antonio Silva and the winner of that fight should fight against the winner of a bout between myself and Werdum. It's just that simple -- it's not rocket science."

-Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem talks to Ariel Helwani at MMAFighting.com about declining a fight with Fedor Emelianenko after the Russian fighter called him out this morning, while also taking a swipe at the matchmaking in Strikeforce in dealing with M-1.

Penick's Analysis: It's amazing how hard it seems to be for Strikeforce to go with that basic and easily set up logic for booking this heavyweight division of theirs, but they've allowed themselves to be stifled by M-1 Global and have to deal with the consequences. Overeem throwing their matchmaking under the bus while subsequently praising how the UFC has set up their heavyweight picture should be a big deal for Strikeforce, but right now it's just comical and par for the course in the organization. With Overeem waiting for Werdum, they cannot give in to M-1's demands and cannot give that fight to Fedor over Overeem. If they're going to have Fedor fight, it should be the Bigfoot Silva bout and then the winner of that should take on the winner of Overeem-Werdum, which will likely take place in early 2011. Overeem's right, it's not rocket science here.