Alistair Overeem Splits From Blackzilians Ahead Of UFC 169 Frank Mir Fight

Former Strikeforce and K-1 champion Alistair Overeem has had a less than stellar start to his UFC career; ‘The Demolition Man’ is 1-2 for the promotion and currently riding two knockout losses on the bounce. In his last two fights against Travis Browne and Antonio Silva, Overeem had been winning up until the point of the knockouts.

Currently booked to face Frank Mir at UFC 169, ‘The Reem’ could well be fighting for his UFC contract. According to a recent interview on The MMA Hour with Overeem’s manager Glenn Robinson, the former Golden Glory product has now parted ways with The Blackzilians training camp:

“No, Alistair doesn’t train with us, he trains in Thailand. He’s welcome back, but he’s decided to do his camp in Thailand. It was a great camp. I talked to him last night, and it was a great camp and he said he feels fantastic. He’s in really good spirits.”

“He’s welcome — he’s always welcome. It’s always his home if he wants it to be, but right now he’s not looking past the fight he has in a couple of weeks, that’s the most important thing. And we’ll see after that what he wants to do.”

It doesn’t seem like Overeem has left on bad terms as he did with team GG, so maybe this time it will prove a positive decision. Overeem looked like a new fighter before getting front kicked to the chin by ‘Hapa’, and perhaps training in Thailand will sharpen his stand up skills against the grappler in Frank Mir.

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His last win, a one sided beat down against Brock Lesnar at UFC 141, showed that Overeem is still as dangerous as any other stand up fighter today. That being said, he looked out of shape against ‘Bigfoot’ and paid the price in the third round of their UFC 156 pairing.

Controversy with steroids, and an alleged assault on a fan meant that Overeem was inactive for 12 months, and the compounding effect of two straight losses truly puts his back against the wall on February 1, at UFC 169. Mir is not doing too well in his recent fighting career either.

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Although he is free of any legal/roid related issues, Frank Mir is riding a three fight losing skid in the UFC. His last win was a brutal snapping of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s arm at UFC 140, but he has since lost by decision to Daniel Cormier and been TKO’d by Junior Dos Santos and Josh Barnett. New Jersey will likely play host to a ‘loser leaves town’ match between two MMA legends, question is who do you pick for the win?