Alistair Overeem: Conor McGregor & Floyd Mayweather Lie About Their Fight Purses
Alistair Overeem is steadily approaching his opportunity at making a bit of personal history for himself, as he aims to secure his first UFC title when he takes on current heavyweight title-holder Stipe Miocic in the main event of UFC 203 later this month.
”’The Reem’ recently participated in a media lunch in Downtown Los Angeles to promote his upcoming title bout, courtesy of MMA Fighting, in which he discussed the mega-fight purses of combat sports superstars Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
Mayweather is known as ‘Money’ for a reason, as he raked in 0 million disclosed for his highly-anticipated fight with Manny Pacquiao, and ‘The Notorious’ Irish champ McGregor was given a UFC record million for his most recent scrap with Nate Diaz at UFC 202.
Overeem, however, is not buying the fact that the two stars were able to pull in such huge paydays, calling for bank statements as proof to the wealth the two men enjoy to flaunt:
“My answer to that, to Mayweather and to Conor, let me see some bank statements,” Overeem said.
“You can talk, you can say it, you can put it out there in tweets, but let me see a bank statement that says UFC wired X amount of money, because it’s always going to be this way. People lie. It’s the 21st century. Social media is fake.”
While the No. 3-ranked UFC heavyweight acknowledges that he himself also enjoys to bask in the fruits of his labor, Overeem credits his roots for not being one to parade his wealth to all that he can, as he believes it does nothing but attract problems:
“I’m from Holland,” Overeem said. “In Holland, we like to dress up, we like to do our thing, we like to be cool. But we what we don’t like is to have stacks of cash on the table and the cars.
To us, in our culture — and in that respect I’m very proud to be Dutch — that’s just attracting problems, attracting difficulty.”
A volatile key to both McGregor and Mayweather’s success has been they’re un-rivaled ability to thrash their opponents on the microphone, making it a must-see for fans across the globe to tune in and witness if the two brash competitors can back up what they are preaching.
Overeem, however, has no aspirations to take any plays from the McGregor-Mayweather playbook, as he will simply continue to stay true to himself and speak his mind:
“I am my own guy and I’ve always kind of followed my own path. I do what I think is right. That brings me happiness. If I’m going to do something because somebody else is doing it, I see that as fake.
Again, you look at these other guys and they’re making the stacks of cash. Who was the first doing that? Muhammad Ali was doing that. So you’re copycatting another guy. I’m just being me. I feel very comfortable being me.
I don’t feel obliged to be somebody else at all. I’m very proud of being me. People lie all the time,” Overeem said. “Personally, I have a hard time believing both of them about their income.”
Overeem will meet Miocic in the main event of UFC 203 for the UFC heavyweight title live on pay-per-view (PPV), from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on September 10, 2016.
