‘Reem: I am the #1 contender
Alistair Overeem: “When I saw the fight I was actually flabbergasted how easily he won. I would never have expected him to knock Fabricio out in the two-minute mark.”
There is a short list of people in combat sports who can knock out a world-class talent with punches while backing up. There’s Muhammad Ali. There’s Chuck Liddell. And now there is new UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, who took the title from Fabricio Werdum with an extraordinary right.
Some have called it a fluke, but like Renzo Gracie says “The harder I train, the luckier I get.”
In an interview on SiriusXM Rush’s Toe-2-Toe with Brian Stann, heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem, who is himself coming off a spectacular win, described his reaction to the KO.
“When I saw the fight I was actually flabbergasted how easily he won,” said ‘Reem, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “I would never have expected him to knock Fabricio out in the two-minute mark, two and a half minutes. Fairly easy. Not that many significant strikes landed before. Basically it was a right hook and then another right and that was the end of that.
“I definitely would have given Fabricio Werdum the home-field advantage. I mean, this was a soccer stadium filled with 45,000 Brazilians, it’s hostile territory for any outsider to fight there. That definitely does give the home fighter an advantage I think but Stipe just went in there and blasted his way to victory in two and a half minutes so congratulations to Stipe. An unexpected win in my book.”
“I think I’m gonna be next for the championship. I just assume that. You know four wins in a row. Nobody else has better numbers than that. Okay you have Cain Velasquez but he’s coming off of a loss. He’s ranked No. 2. I don’t really get that. He’s coming off of a loss and then the other thing is his last win dates from 2013. That’s three years ago. It’s 2016 now. His last win is 2013. So I don’t understand why he’s ranked No. 2. But I’m not a numbers guy.
“I just focus on what I need to do and that is train, be healthy, get better, win my fights. I’ve always had the belief that when you’re just doing that it will all turn out fine and the belt will come automatically. So I have no intentions of stopping what I’m doing and I do expect that the championship fight is next. The championship win by the way.”
“Immediately the next morning I started my camp for��Stipe because I expect to face him next for the UFC heavyweight championship. He’s a formidable opponent and I’m looking forward to studying more and becoming a better fighter than I am because of him.”
Cain Velasquez (#2) and Travis Browne (#7) fight at UFC 200 on July 11. The winner is the only other figure who can reasonably claim to be owed a title shot.