Strikeforce heavyweight champ and recent K-1 Grand Prix winner Alistair Overeem has officially been added to DREAM’s Dynamite!! 2010 fight card on New Year’s Eve in Japan, but his opponent has yet to be finalized.
UFC veteran Todd Duffee has emerged as Overeem’s likely foe after a matchup with Bobby Lashley recently fell through and even announced he’d be facing Overeem at the HDNet-televised event before deleting the Facebook update earlier today.
Overeem (33-11) returns to MMA for the first time since defending the Strikeforce title over Brett Rogers in May, while Duffee (6-1) would be fighting for the first time since being released by the UFC after a May loss to Mike Russow.
For the latest DREAM news and Dynamite!! 2010 rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Todd Duffee
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ive already heard that hes turned down the fight cause he didnt like the contract Dream sent him
that was lashley who turned down the fight.
It is gonna look awesome for strikeforce if their heavyweight champion gets knocked out by a guy the ufc cut. Bob koker is retarded
First, I think you may mean Scott Coker, Strikeforce’s promoter. The only “Bob” I can think of is Bob Cook, current AKA trainer and former Sf exec, who is no longer officially with the org.
Second, this fight, if signed, makes sense promotionally when you consider that Duffee is something of a “hot ticket” item right now in the MMA HW free agent market.
Third, there are only so many options promoters have for name HW opponents. Lashley begged off or backed out. Other names like Fedor or Werdum or whoever likewise didn’t sign off for whatever reason/s.
If in fact Overeem is going to fight for DREAM, who is he going to face if not Duffee? Almost everyone else is unavailable, tied up in Sf’s upcoming HW tournament, or under contract elsewhere.
Finally, of course there is always some promotional risk in any fight, especially a title fight.
Dana White allowed the biggest draw in MMA to step in against Cain Velasquez less than 2 months after facing Shane Carwin and paid the price for it. It was a gamble, which paid off in mixed results.
Yes, Lesnar lost his title, but the UFC gained a new star in Velasquez, and its not like Lesnar’s return won’t be huge.
In the end the UFC will probably come out on the good side of that decision.
Scott Coker is prepared to pay that same price, and take the same gamble with Alistair Overeem, even though there is a distinct difference between Japanese MMA and North American MMA, and DREAm and Strikeforce.
If Overeem beats Duffee, his champion looks just that much more legit, especially in the face of popular opinion [and Zuffa business model] that no one has the talent to compete with the UFC at any weightclass.
If Duffee does win, which IMO is unlikely but possible, Coker “inherits” a new HW star in Duffee, and the subsequent Strikeforce rematch should be both good stuff and big business.
That strikes me as good decisionmaking, and there is nothing “retarded” about that, is there?
What is Bob Koker thinking?! :D
Ok first of all I would like to apologize for being a moron and typing Bob koker that was a big time brain fart but do not let that stupid typo overshadow my point. The fact that this “strikes u as good decision making ” is crazy. Maybe I am just uneducated as far as how other mma organizations are ran, but I know for a fact Dana white would not let this happen. The lesnar and velasquez situation does not compare with this. First of all velasquez was the #1 contender in the ufc and is undefeated in mma. Do u think the ufc should have never made lesnar defend his belt? Second of all, it was for the ufc hw belt. If overeeem loses in another organization against somebody the ufc just cut, how is the strikeforce belt even relevant anymore? I deserved the bashing for calling Scott coker Bob koker and I guess I deserved u being a smart a$$ about Bob cook from aka but u are nuts if u think this is good decision making
@willyt -
You’re right when you type that Dana White would never let a fight like Overeem-Duffee happen.
Why?
Because he doesn’t HAVE to, thats why.
The UFC is the sport’s premiere org, and for a lot of people IS the sport itself.
Strikeforce and Scott Coker have to work a lot harder and smarter to maintain their marketshare and fanbase, and subsequently take bigger risks, sort of like the way it is when 2 neighboring restaurants compete.
The smaller place needs to drop wilder menus to put a$$es into chairs in order to hang with the larger, more established place.
Its an old story that repeats itself in almost every walk of life.
Finally lets keep in mind that there is a difference, for the time being, between DREAM and Strikeforce.
As far as Lesnar-Velasquez, I never said the fight shouldn’t have happened. What I DO think is that it probably shouldn’t have happened 10 weeks after Lesnar and Carwin rumbled.
Lesnar should have taken his time to more properly prepare for a smaller, smarter, faster opponent who was training with a MUCH better camp than he was.
Instead Lesnar suhed in assuming he would silverback Velasquez, which he nearly did, and got humiliated in the process.
Hope that clears things up…
The overall fightcard is taking an awsome shape. Saw it in junkie’s site.
When Duffee is 6-1 I wonder why he was cut from UFC. I can’t recall him fighting his last fight in UFC.
i believe dana white cited attitude problems with duffy, or something of that sort.
Duffee essentially “Tweet’ed” his way out of a job by publicly disrespecting the UFC while under contract.
He also was reportedly less than friendly towards some fans at the Boston UFC Fan Expo, and thats a cardinal sin in the MMA church of Dana White…
Alistair is going to destroy Duffee. Duffee was released from the UFC because of how he was viewed by Dana white. Duffee comments on this at S’Dog. This is a great matchup for Alistair. Unfortunately, when he destroys Duffee, everyone is just joing to say Duffee is a UFC reject, thus cheapening the credit Overeem deserves.
ST
I really don’t think Overeem will have any problems with Duffee unless Duffee has dramatically improved or grown a chin. Overeem hits much harder than Russow.
As far as the card goes, yeah it should be great. I’m just excited to be able to watch it free DVR’d off HDNet on New Year’s Day. No better hangover cure than 5 hours of free MMA and greasy food ;P
I’m jelous, my cable company dropped HDnet. Hopefully I can find it somewhere.
I dont’ really see Duffee winning this fight either, but he punches hard and i think he’s got a chance. Duffee i’m not sure is any worse of a fighter than what Overeem has been fighting. I would’ve bet Duffee beat Brett Rogers, so I don’t have a problem with this fight, and if SF can get deeper in any division, i’m all for it so we don’t have to see the same guys fighting every time. Be careful, Russow just might win this one.
Actually if Duffee can put up a good showing in this DREAM event , I could see some big fights for him in the SF cage …… Brett Rogers would be a great opponent for him , so would Bigfoot Silva ….
Are you guys smokin’ crack around here? Duffee pummeled away at Russow for more than 2 rounds and couldn’t finish him. Russow throws a half-hearted punch that barely connects and knocks him out.
I wish Duffee well here, but this is not a real evenly matched fight for Overeem. This is like a duffle bag tune-up sparring session for him.
Free card on HDNet is good, looking forward to it. I would love to see Overeem fight the HW UFC guys, he is just a beast. Plus, the UFC desperately needs some fighters added to that HW division to match the HW talent in some of the other organizations. Either that, or have some UFC HWs defect to match top HW talent in other orgs.
If Duffee didn’t take the fight with Bigfoot Silva on short notice, then there is no way in hell that Duffee would take a fight on short notice with the baddest heavyweight on the planet in Alistair Overeem!
^^ agreed i think duffee is in for a long night… or rather short one and waking up and then having a long night ;)
Man… another match up i dont really understand. overeem really has little to gain from fight todd. And if for some reason he should lose that would look really bad! but what the hell ill still watch it lol
Im pretty sure that Overeem is more concerned about his DREAM paycheck clearing than he is about losing to Todd Duffee…
Duffee is going to be DESTROYED by Overeem. That is all.
Consider that if Todd Duffee is in fact “destroyed” by Alistair Overeem, his value is greatly diminished to both DREAM and Strikeforce, as opposed to if he just gets beaten, if you follow.
Ideally Duffee will make a good enough showing against Overeem to warrant Sf signing him for more fights, and thereby adding to their talent pool…
Punchers chance for Duffee…
Sounds about right…
Ya if he had brass knucks on maybe
wikipedia lists duffee a having a fight after overeem jan 29th.
so it’s imperative that he win by KO in under 5 secs.
ahem… punchers chance. can’t see it lasting more than a 16yr old with a girlie mag.
Overeem just won the K-1 …………… I dont give Duffee to much odds of a successful stand-up offence ….if he does flatten Overeem maybe K-1 is the way for Duffee to route himself