UFC
Alistair Overeem in good spirits despite UFC Fight Night 50 loss, hopes to return as soon as possible
Sep 15, 2014 - 6:40:26 PM Alistair Overeem in good spirits despite UFC Fight Night 50 loss, hopes to return as soon as possible

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Alistair Overeem is disappointed in his performance against Ben Rothwell at UFC Fight Night 50, but he's in decent spirits about the situation at the moment.

"I'm good," he said on Monday in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. "The fight was not good. That was terrible, a terrible result. I can tell you it's such a shame, because I was in damn good shape. And that just proves to me it can alter in the heavyweights, one mistake, one blow."

"I'm disappointed in the result of the fight, but you know I was in a great place and I'm still in a great place. I think I really found myself at Greg Jackson's. I like the people, and the prep was great. And I know - I just know - that all those months of work that I put in are going to come out. It might not have come out in the fight, or the result wasn't there, but I know it's going to come out later. Because I know what I'm doing in the gym... I just know that it's in the right direction. So again, very unfortunately result."

Overeem said he planned to play things a bit safe against Rothwell early on, not wanting to risk getting caught, but when he thought he had Rothwell hurt, he threw that out. Ultimately, he was correct in that he had Rothwell hurt, but he left himself open to what wound up being a fight ending attack from his opponent.

"We all knew that Ben has hard hands, that's how he wins fights," he said. "I kicked his arm, and I thought I disabled his arm. I heard a crack, I could see he was hurt, so I didn't expect him to punch with it, especially not that fast counter-punch. I was maybe expecting him to punch a little bit later, but not that fast, and I didn't expect it to come from that angle.

"I should have been more guarded, I should have been more careful. We all knew Ben could take a punch, well maybe take a couple of punches, he's a tough guy. He's got hard hands. And I just made a mistake."

With the UFC already explicitly stating that they'll be giving him another fight, Overeem is hoping to return as soon as possible.

Penick's Analysis: He's taking a solid approach to his situation, and he recognizes where he erred in the Rothwell fight. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll turn it around for his next fight. He might not get back on track, and another loss could send him out of the UFC for good. That said, recognizing what went wrong is a good step in figuring out how to avoid that in the future.

[Alistair Overeem art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]