AJ’s criticism of ‘Reem woefully short on specific evidence

It is an unfortunate fact of media that alarming charges garner great attention, and if the charges prove to have little substance, well, that’s not interesting.

UFC light heavyweight Anthony Johnson got widespread attention when he charged that while a member of the Blackzilians, UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem hurt people ‘accidentally on purpose’. The accusation was made after Jon Jones injured his knee while training with ‘Reem, who had recently joined Jackson’s MMA.

Various members of ‘Reems new team said it wasn’t so, but suspicions lingered.

Bloody Elbow‘s Steph Daniels, who can always be counted on to deliver an awesome interview, delivered an awesome interview. She talked with Johnson at length, but there was precious little substance to the charges. Johnson’s main concern seems to be that Overeem was an aloof team member. While this may very, very well be true, it is a far, far cry from saying he tries to injure teammates.

“When Alistair was here, he would have his own camp, basically,” said Johnson. “To me, the bottom line is this, he wasn’t a part of the Blackzilians. We do this stuff as a team, as a family. We push each other, and we don’t bring ten extra guys in that weren’t helping any of us elevate our skill level.

“He came in a couple of times and trained with us, but not enough to really make a mark in my memory. I’d say maybe 5 times in total. I don’t know, I’m just throwing up a number, but it wasn’t that many times. I sparred with him a couple of times, but overall, it wasn’t a team thing. It was the Blackzilians and then there was Alistair and his crew. He would always come up in conversation when people talked about our team, but to me, he wasn’t doing s—.

Johnson also related he was upset with Overeem for throwing a knee to the stomach of a trainer while sparring, as the trainer had stomach issues.

“There was another reason I didn’t want to work with him that day,” said Johnson. “My trainer, Henri Hooft was training with us. Now Henri has a bad stomach; he’s had a lot of stomach issues, had surgery and whatnot. He had been working with Alistair, and everyone in that gym knows Henri has a bad stomach, so we know not to go hard, especially in his midsection.

“Right off the bat, Alistair got him in a clinch and threw a hard knee, BAM! right in his stomach. I’m like, ‘Okay, strike 20.’ Then, I seen him in there, and Henri got out of position. Alistair moved where he was on Henri’s left side, but behind him, and he threw a punch. That punch was straight at the back of Henri’s head. That was the moment I knew that I fucking hated this guy. I don’t have respect for anybody like that.”

In a remarkable bit of irony, Johnson got injured while sparring with Overeem, because Johnson was going too hard.

“He never hurt me personally, but I did hurt myself training with him,” said Johson. “I hurt my hand. I had just come back to training after I fought Arlovski. I had broken my hand during that fight and it was my first week back off that injury. Alistair came in on Meat Night, and I had already heard about him so I told my coaches, ‘I don’t want to train with him.’ I had seen how he treated people and I didn’t like him.

“He would belittle people, and wasn’t respectful at all. A lot of other people noticed it, too. It was like we were all in his world. Anyway, we sparred, and it was right when he had come back from Thailand in preparation for the Travis Browne fight. It was the last round of our sparring practice, and he had been after me to spar with him, so I was like, ‘F— it, let’s go.’ That’s what I said in my head.

“First punch, I was trying to kill him [laughs], because I had heard that if you don’t set the tone with him, he won’t respect you. Right off the bat, I hit him with some good combos. That’s how I hurt my hand. He got off some shots, but never hit me flush with anything. If he did, I would say that he did, but he didn’t. I’m not trying to brag, but he just didn’t. He’s hit me with some good leg kicks before, but he’s never hit me with anything from his hands that mattered.”

When Johnson finally got to an actual case of Overeem injuring a training partner, the account was secondhand, and ambiguous.

My partner, Guto Inocente was sparring with him,” said Johnson. “I wasn’t there, but the guys in the gym said that Guto was piecing Alistair up. They said Alistair got frustrated and grabbed him by the knee and took him down hard. When he did that, he blew out Guto’s knee. He had to have surgery and everything after that. This was during stand-up practice. Why would you take him down when it’s just a striking session?”

In short, Johnson did not offer an eye witness account of Overeem trying to injure a training partner. The only injury he saw was both by and to himself, from sparring too hard. By contrast he spoke at great length about the ways in which Overeem was a poor team member.

In further defense of Overeem, it has to be noted that a number of members of Jackson’s MMA have said that ‘Reem is an excellent and appreciated team member.

AJ did however offer a complimentary assessment of Overeem’s losing effort to Ben Rothwell at UFN 50.

“To me, he looked faster and he looked stronger,” said Johnson on The MMA Hour as transcribed by Adam Guillen Jr. for MMAMania. “He started fast, but I think he always starts that way and then he gets too comfortable. A lot of people are saying he got knocked out. That wasn’t a knockout. When you get knocked out, you just drop. He got hit in his temple and it messed him up. So it wasn’t like he got knocked out cold. He just got caught, got surprised, and that’s what happens all the time in MMA.”

“He’s still one of the top heavyweights in the world, in my opinion. I don’t think they are going to get rid of him. He is still going to sell tickets. People either want to see him win or to lose. It’s not like when Anderson was fighting or when GSP was fighting and when Chuck was fighting. People wanted to see those guys dominate somebody. With him (Overeem), they want to see him almost get beat up now because of the things he’s done or said, or whatever he got caught up with and stuff like that. He just changed people’s view of him.”

Anthony Johnson is proving to be adept at keeping himself in the media’s eye, most recently going back and forth with Alexander Gustafsson. However, when making serious charges, we would all do well to remember Carl Sagan’s wise words – “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Inferring that a fighter intentionally tries to injure teammates is an extraordinary charge, and the evidence only showed that the sole injury caused by irresponsibility was by Johnson, to himself.

This blog was long and boring, but it has to be said.