By MATT BOONE
MMANEWS.COM Staff Writer
The official website of the Poland-based mixed martial arts promotion “Strefa Walk” is currently advertising a main event between Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and former PRIDE FC veteran Aleksander Emelianenko for their upcoming event on November 19th.
The bout is obviously not the Overeem-Emelianenko showdown that some may have been expecting as the next Strikeforce heavyweight title attraction, but is an interesting pairing regardless.
Aleksander (17-3), real-life brother of heavyweight MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko, has quietly put together an eight-fight win streak spanning from early 2007 to his last fight, a TKO victory over Miodrag Petkovic this past May. Coincidentally enough, Aleksander's last defeat came at the hands of Fabricio Werdum via first round arm-triangle choke submission at the 2H2H show back in November of 2006.
It's no secret what Overeem has been up to lately. Having held his own in sporadic kickboxing matches for several years in K-1 (the “major leagues” of the kickboxing world), Overeem reached another level of success in the promotion, beating some of their top contenders in impressive fashion. The kickboxing side-gig obviously didn't derail Overeem's MMA career, as the long-time “Golden Glory” team member acquired the second most coveted prize in heavyweight MMA when he became the Strikeforce champion with his victory over Paul Buentello back in November of 2007. Overeem (33-11 in MMA) didn't exactly earn the reputation of a “fighting champion” after winning the title, failing to return to the Strikeforce cage for a single title defense from the Nov. '07 victory until his last fight, a one-sided and one-round beat down of Brett Rogers at the Strikeforce event this past May.
Despite the inactivity within the Strikeforce borders, Overeem has compiled a near-flawless record since the Buentello victory, winning seven of eight fights from that Nov. '07 match. The only blemish in his eight contests came via a controversial “no contest” decision against Mirko CroCop at the DREAM 6 show in September of 2008.
It should be noted, for those keeping track of the heavyweight pecking order, that Overeem too has a submission loss to the recent “talk-of-the-MMA-town” Fabricio Werdum, dropping their bout in PRIDE in May of 2006 via tap out due to kimura.
Below you can read a roughly translated version of the report that started this story from the official Strefa Walk website. The official online destination of the Polish-based MMA promotion lists Overeem-Emelianenko as their main event in November, going as far as calling the match “confirmed”.
Fight night – the final War of the Polish-Ruska. Who will win?
Fight night has long been kept secret. Finally confirmed that the war waged during the Gala of Polish-Ruska will fight the final battle with Alexander Emelianenko Alistair Overeem. Welcome to our probes, who is likely to vote and how to defeat the enemy.
While “Golden Glory” front-man Bas Boon reportedly gave the story its' official stamp of approval as legitimate news, he wasn't as confident as the gang representing the Strefa Walk website, as he stated that an Overeem-Emelianenko fight in Poland is still in the negotiation process.
You can read the tweet from the official Twitter page of MMARocks.pl, which claims to have spoken with Boon about the potential match.
“Just got an e-mail from Bas Boon – the A.Overeem vs. A.Emelianenko fight in Poland is indeed being negotiated”
Clearly an Overeem vs. Emelianenko fight in Poland next month is presently in the works, whether or not the match is a done deal remains to be seen, at least from the perspective of the Overeem camp. As of this article, the Emelianenko camp has yet to respond to the potential bout in any fashion.
