Overeem is not and never was an 'elite kickboxer'

[Palis]

Originally Posted by Abezal

Bas - Karate Taekwondo Kickboxer UFC HW CHAMPION
Crocop - boxer Kickboxing K1 Pride OWGP CHAMPION

noobs.

What a noob you are.

lol @ Bas and Taekwondo Kickboxer

and lol @ CC who was a MMA fighter in 2006

Welcome to MMA.

[irish_thug]

Overeem never would have taken the GP if Aerts didn't have the formula for getting through Semmy.

[Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by Snubnoze707

Stupid thread. Overeem has always had a weak chin. We've seen it in MMA AND K-1. He got clipped and couldn't come back from it. A fights a fight.

I hate this dumb mentality fight fans have that as soon as a fighter loses they never were really any good and that their accomplishments suddenly disappear.

Yeah, it's really kind of sad. It's ridiculous to say Overeem was never elite when he had a very competitive fight with Bonjasky (that decision could very easily be argued), went 1-1 with Hari, and won a WGP.

Saki and Aers were battle worn in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, but that's the nature of a tournament.

If it was all some flukey win, why have long time vets like LeBanner and Sefo gone uncrowned after so many years? You would think they'd have gotten 'lucky' once or twice too.

People will say anything to discredit a fighter when they're down.

[JohnyBoyy]

The problem of Overeem is that:

1) Overeem uses a high guard to protect his chin in K-1. In MMA this doesn't work, you need to be more mobile, to have good head movement and you NEED to have a good chin, because you are doomed to be punched in the face eventually.
Overeem lacks head movement, good chin, and heart to hold his own under pressure.

2) Overeem has no gas. In the begining he undestood that, so he would get bigger for his K-1 fights, rise to his 260's, while getting back to the 250's for MMA fights.
But still the problem remains, he has no gas, so any fight who goes more then 2 rounds will be deadly for him. And he is worse now, because at LHW he would gas, but only after throwing a good amount of kicks, punches, knees, and even after grapple a bit. Now he gas just by, basicaly, being around, moving a bit and throwing some arm punches.

3) Overeem is getting slower and slower by the minute. He was never the fastest guy, but nowadays he is getting quite slow. Too much weight I guess?

4) To fight Bigfoot with his arms down was stupid. If you want to do that you need to be fast, to have good head movement and to have stamina. He saw Fedor do that against Big Nog and decided to do that. The thing is, Fedor had all this I just said and Overeem doesn't, K-1 title or not. Besides Fedor always had a good chin and wouldn't crack under pressure, in the case he was punched while using this strategy, what did happened of course, because this is a MMA fight, it's almost impossible to not be punched in the face with a good shot.

Also, I invite you to see Overeem against Brett Rogers. He looked so much more mobile and with speed (!) on his hands and with a good form, not like on this fight, where he looked sloppy, slow and was doing arm punches...

[stmarcus]

Originally Posted by JohnyBoyy

3) Overeem is getting slower and slower by the minute. He was never the fastest guy, but nowadays he is getting quite slow. Too much weight I guess?

Did you watch the first round? Overeem is by no means fast, but he was waaay faster than Bigfoot. Easily dodging all his punches, showing good movement and awareness. Overeem's problem isn't that he's slow, since the majority of the division is slow as well. Outside of guys like Cain, JDS and Cormier (who will likely drop to LHW) there aren't too many guys out there that will be too fast for Overeem to handle.

[consortium11]

Originally Posted by Palis

What a noob you are.

lol @ Bas and Taekwondo Kickboxer

and lol @ CC who was a MMA fighter in 2006

Welcome to MMA.

Overeem had his first recorded kickboxing bout in 1999 (prior to his first recorded MMA contest). He had his first kickboxing bout under the K-1 Banner in a tournament in Holland in 2001 and his first "proper" K-1 match in 2004. He won the World GP in 2010.

So that's 11 years since his kickboxing début, 9 years since his K-1 début and six years since his first real high profile kickboxing contest.

Cro Cop had his first MMA match in 2001 and won the OPGP in 2006... roughly five years later. Overeem has been a kickboxer for far longer than Cro Cop has been an MMA fighter.

If you want to use the logic that Cro Cop was an MMA fighter when he won the GP then you have to likewise say that Overeem was a kickboxer when he won the World GP.

Now, personally I think Cro Cops OWGP win is one of the most overrated achievements in MMA but none of that changes the fact that it came within five years of him moving to MMA and within three years of him starting to train it full time. Overeem's experience in kickboxing bouts matches that.

[Dark One]

He was never known as a submission fighter, he has always been a striker. Watch some of his fights in PRIDE.

[boron gracie]

Originally Posted by Abezal

Bas - Karate Taekwondo Kickboxer UFC HW CHAMPION
Crocop - boxer Kickboxing K1 Pride OWGP CHAMPION

noobs.

whats next?

chuck liddell - kempo karate - ufc champion
ben henderson - taekwondo - ufc champion
maurice smith - kickboxing - ufc champion
shogun rua - muay thai - pride gp / ufc champion winner
lyoto machida - karate - ufc champion
wanderlei silva - muay thai - pride champion
gsp - karate - ufc champion
anderson silva - muay thai - ufc champion

cro cop/bas trained mma for years before they became Top3-5 in mma, there is no example that i know where a kickboxer switched to mma without training much mma and having success, there are examples where mma fighters switched to k-1 and had success right away bob sapp vs hoost, rampage vs abidi.

[Ghos]

Originally Posted by boron gracie

whats next?

chuck liddell - kempo karate - ufc champion
ben henderson - taekwondo - ufc champion
maurice smith - kickboxing - ufc champion
shogun rua - muay thai - pride gp / ufc champion winner
lyoto machida - karate - ufc champion
wanderlei silva - muay thai - pride champion
gsp - karate - ufc champion
anderson silva - muay thai - ufc champion

cro cop/bas trained mma for years before they became Top3-5 in mma, there is no example that i know where a kickboxer switched to mma without training much mma and having success, there are examples where mma fighters switched to k-1 and had success right away bob sapp vs hoost, rampage vs abidi.

1. Jeff Monson won a No-Gi WC gold medal.

2. He's a UFC dropout.

Hence UFC > BJJ

[Bjjpenn]

Originally Posted by jj manchester

first of all, Overeem is an MMA fighter and always has been. His early ventures into kickboxing were unsuccessful and he went the MMA route and was known as a submission fighter

then he took a load of juice and pumped up to heavyweight; noobs with no clue started jacking off over his muscles

his win over Badr Hari at the time was trumpeted as a win for MMA over kickboxing

then he entered the K1 circuit proper and won a very weak GP over a blown-up Tyrone Spong, Saki who had a broken arm and a 300 year-old Peter Aerts. Suddenly Overeem was the best striker in the world

i've heard numerous times that Saki used to fuck Overeem up in sparring; Overeem has none of the slickness, speed or fluidity of a guy like Saki. He's not a true kickboxer at all. He's an MMA fighter who trained with a top kickboxing team

now the hype has burst, hopefully for good but you never know

pretty spot on. sad, but true.

Reem needs to re-evolve his game, drop some mass and get in the 24-245 range. His athleticism is out of this world but his 'fight' cardio is atrocious.

Saki would have won the GP if not the broken arm and yes Saki tooled Reem in training.

Mistake leaving GG he needed them, they train killers. The fight to knock people out. I also think GG needs to evolve more into the MMA scene and get some cred.

Vitor is the only one recently that looked good out of Blackzillians...