...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
After winning this year's K-1 World Grand Prix earlier in the month, Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem wanted to get back to MMA action on the K-1 Dynamite!! 2010 New Year's Eve event. After a bout with former pro wrestler and two time Strikeforce vet Bobby Lashley failed to come to fruition, former UFC heavyweight Todd Duffee stepped up on a weeks notice for a reported $60,000 payday.
While Overeem has yet to face top flight competition in the heavyweight division in MMA, he proved on New Year's Eve why he's considered one of the best in the world by many, decimating Duffee in 14 seconds in Japan to become the Interim DREAM Heavyweight Champion.
Duffee charged across the ring to start the bout, missing on a wild right and attempting to take Overeem down. After getting stuffed, Duffee was hit with a couple of knees in the clinch from Overeem and then driven back to his corner. A knee to the chest stunned Duffee, and a two punch follow up put him out and through the ropes.
Overeem will now hopefully return to MMA action in the U.S. for Strikeforce sometime in the spring, likely against Fabricio Werdum for the Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship.
Penick's Analysis: All this really proved was what was known heading in, Duffee probably didn't belong in the cage with Overeem at this point in his career. Still, in a fight in which he took a lot of risk and could have taken some real damage to his image as a top heavyweight, Overeem didn't flinch, and took out Duffee in such a dominant fashion that he made it look easy. Overeem's a scary man in the ring or the cage, now I just want to see what he can do against the top fighters in the division instead of taking fights like this in Japan. But check out the video below of the fight for yourself (App users video available at MMATorch.com):
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
