Why is "Ubereem" so highly regarded on here despite getting KO'd by Bigfoot?

[King.]

Nah, he was pushing Bigfoot against the cage and stalling. Iirc. Usually do.

Not in this case, rewatch it. He was throwing Bigfoot around quite literally. It's a good fight , worth it to give it another go.

 

[moreorless87]

i really think he also didnt expect werdum to engage him with those straights. Werdum was down to stand with him until he injured his leg.

In K-1 he basically just staked people with a high guard, threw very little from range. Even there I suspect that style would have been found out long term, in MMA I don't think it had a future and the shift to being more mobile and working from the outside needed to happen.

 

[HHJ]

In K-1 he basically just staked people with a high guard, threw very little from range. Even there I suspect that style would have been found out long term, in MMA I don't think it had a future and the shift to being more mobile and working from the outside needed to happen.

Plus the high guard and his lack of mobility,if someone can avoid the knee,he could be taken down by a beast wrestler.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

he was handling bigfoot easily leading up to it, his chin has always let him down

former strikeforce, dream, K1, ADCC champ

best knee in the game

bigfoot w/ TRT is top level

You don't know anything about fighting if you think Overeem was dominating Big Foot. Zero.

 

[dog y]

Not in this case, rewatch it. He was throwing Bigfoot around quite literally. It's a good fight , worth it to give it another go.

Just rewatched. Decent scrap but as I remembered, no Barn burner. It's a bit weird watching two very chinny huge Heavies fighting with no fear of getting KOd. Well, Reem kept his hands low to taunt but after each attempted combo he tried to hold BF against the cage.

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

Because Bigfoot was also on roids

Correct. And Bigfoot also fucked Fedor up.

 

[orca]

Bf smashed fedor too. Sometimes luck plays a role. But cain smashing bf ain't no luck. Just shows u the level of cain's skills where at that time

 

[King.]

Just rewatched. Decent scrap but as I remembered, no Barn burner. It's a bit weird watching two very chinny huge Heavies fighting with no fear of getting KOd. Well, Reem kept his hands low to taunt but after each attempted combo he tried to hold BF against the cage.

Good point, reem still had that Ubereem confidence while not being Ubereem anymore. Although if memory serves me right, Bigfoot wasn't that chinny back then , right? First fight with Hunt was after that if I recall correctly and he tools some bombs in that one.

 

[King.]

In K-1 he basically just staked people with a high guard, threw very little from range. Even there I suspect that style would have been found out long term, in MMA I don't think it had a future and the shift to being more mobile and working from the outside needed to happen.

Good point, also the K-1 roster was far from at its strongest at the time. However Overeem had that excess power and strength back then and he's always had a good sense of timing and accuracy. I think that made more than a few guys hesitant to trade with him. Even Hari in the first fight who normally swings for the fences like a madman. Most impressive to me about his K-1 run was that I always looked at it as something he did on the side.

 

[Richard Fannin]

He was schooling bigfoot until he got caught.

Also, Reem won the K1 title in Tokyo which shows that he's a great striker

Indeed, Reem KOing Badr Hari in K1 was HUGE at the time, many MMA fans started to really take AO seriously after that kickboxing bout.

Since the context around this upset might be difficult to understand for newer fans who weren't here at the time, and who could be confused as to why a non-MMA bout boosted Reem's stock so much, I figured I would explain in details:

Before the fight, Alistair was like 1-2 in old kickboxing bouts dating from 99/2001, hadn't fought in K1 for 4 years, was criticized for his "glass jaw" and even if he was getting some traction in MMA with his infamous horse-powered bulk-up, he was only at the start of his impressive run that ended when Bigfoot KO'd him in the UFC many years later...

On the other hand, Badr Hari then had been the K1 HW champion for a while, was considered one of the very best that K1 had to offer (Remy Bonjaski also had an argument for being the best HW kickboxer at the time) before the Reem fight, in which he (Hari) was a huge favorite.

Note: Badr was stripped of his champion title for his actions during the Bonjaski fight, (right before the Reem one), in which Hari socer kicked Remy after knocking him down, for seemingly no reason at all...
So Badr wasn't the official champion anymore, but he hadn't really "lost" the belt fair and square, which is why he was still considered the top dog in K1 despite being stripped of his belt.

A big factor to this fight's exposure was that they competed on a huge Dynamite!!! card that had both MMA and Kickboxing bouts on it, so even the MMA enthusiast who usually weren't really into watching entire K1 events, were interested in this one.

Let's not forget that, at the time, the "K1 level strikers" still had a big mystique on Sherdog, so for the fans, the outcome of this fight was pretty obvious... the K1 rebel golden boy Badr Hari would make short work of Overeem.

Plus, another important factor was that Alistair & Badr were supposed to fight twice; first with kickboxing rules, and at the next event with MMA rules.
So the consensus was that Hari would easily win the stand-up bout (Badr did a lot of trash talk, saying stuff like AO disrespected him by entertaining the idea that he could make the fight competitive), and that Overeem would have to submit him in the MMA rematch to have a chance at making it even.

Then the fight start, and 2 mins in, this happens =>
400 × 300
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url...ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCLC83p_J-eoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO
384 × 288

Crazy upset, the MMA world goes nuts, and the "K1 level striker" myth takes a huge blow (which was perhaps the last straw), and Hari later announces that, despite their previous agreement, he won't rematch Overeem under MMA rules and would stick to kickboxing for now, making Reem look even better in the process.


PS: I know that all of you who followed the sport back in 2008 already know all that, but as I said at the beginning, it's not an upset that is easy to comprehend if you weren't following the sport back then.
There are accomplishment in MMA that, even if you didn't witness it live, you can still get why they were such a big deal at the time if you educate yourself on the sport's history

Shogun's 2005 PRIDE GP victory for example, or Anderson Silva's UFC MW run, Sakuraba's victories of the Gracie family, Jon Jones' title run when he was running through lots of elite fighters like it was nothing, or even the insane hype behind fighters like Machida & Sokoudjou entered the UFC.


Then there are the ones that are more delicate to really get in hindsight, like Mark Kerr's run (nowadays lots of newer fans can just look at his record on go "meh, he just beat a bunch of nobodies from the look of it, what's the big deal?"), or why Ubereem got so much traction between his PRIDE days and his UFC debut.
I'd argue that Badr Hari played a big role in building Reem's aura of invincibility, and putting the final nail in the "K1 level striker" , turning it into a meme...

 

[Humongo]

Pretty sure he got suspended after getting slept by Bigfoot

You are wrong, so next time you are "pretty sure" of something better shut your mouth.

 

[Harlekin]

Bigfoot landed
3 punches in the 1st to 22
4 punches in the 2nd to 27
Alistair landed at 70%
Then he got overconfident and a little tired, BOOM

 

[moreorless87]

Good point, also the K-1 roster was far from at its strongest at the time. However Overeem had that excess power and strength back then and he's always had a good sense of timing and accuracy. I think that made more than a few guys hesitant to trade with him. Even Hari in the first fight who normally swings for the fences like a madman. Most impressive to me about his K-1 run was that I always looked at it as something he did on the side.

There is always somewhat of a random effect of the WGP in K-1 as well, Saki coming into the fight with an injuried arm after a war with Ghita then Aerts coming off of one with Semmy, not sure Reem would have done well against the latter.

 

[wearetheromans]

I WON'T JOIN THIS DEBATE, I'D HATE TO HAVE TO CATCH A BODY

DOOT DOOTLE LOOT DOO

 

[wearetheromans]

the guy is fucking 40 years old, still fighting the best heavyweights in the world, off the juice, and is still a top 10 HW in the world.

has fought literally everybody whose anybody in the world of MMA for 20 years.

and here you have some shitcuck who joined last week making a hate thread about him. just fuck off

 

[wearetheromans]

overeem has been in 56 fights that ended by KO/TKO or submission (winning most of them)

he's one of the OGs

and here we are with a little hate thread

fuck you

 

[Harlekin]

You don't know anything about fighting if you think Overeem was dominating Big Foot. Zero.

Bigfoot landed 7 punches in the first 10 minutes. Rewatch the fight before you say something like this. It was a schooling

 

[King.]

I think the best thing about Overeem is that he brings it every time. Either he finishes or he gets taken out dramatically. The good thing is that if he loses, he takes it on the chin (literally) and moves on. Strictly business for the guy. Those ko losses against Bigfoot and Francis (and a fuckton others) must've stung big time and would have crushed a lesser dude mentally . Instead the guy just keeps going in a division where anyone can knock you out at any time, and his kryptonite is his propensity to getting knocked the fuck out. That takes some brass balls.

Also, Demolition Man must be the coolest nickname ever and it's fitting as well. Never really cared for "the reem".

 

[Pizza Werewolf]

LETS JUDGE PEOPLE BY ONE LOSS!

 

[moreorless87]

the guy is fucking 40 years old, still fighting the best heavyweights in the world, off the juice, and is still a top 10 HW in the world.

has fought literally everybody whose anybody in the world of MMA for 20 years.

and here you have some shitcuck who joined last week making a hate thread about him. just fuck off

I suspect actually him always having a weakness in boxing has worked in his favour here, he never really depended much on handspeed/reactions or his chin.

He's been finished many times of course but he hasn't had the wars someone like JDS has or I suspect as brutal a training environment. That's both meant less physical decline and the decline that has happened having less of an impact on his performances.