Anthony Johnson Fires Off On Alistair Overeem

It’s no secret that UFC light-heavyweight contender Anthony Johnson isn’t keen on his former training partner Alistair Overeem.

The two fighters have traded multiple blows recently in the media and a fight could possibly be in line for the pair. In a recent interview with BloodyElbow.com, “Rumble” discussed his issues with the former K-1 world champion and explained how his dislike for Overeem originated.

Take a look at the extract of what Johnson has to say below:

“When Alistair was here, he would have his own camp, basically,” Johnson said. “It was the Blackzilians and then there was Alistair and his crew. He would always come up in conversation when people talked about our team, but to me, he wasn’t doing shit.

He never hurt me personally, but I did hurt myself training with him. I hurt my hand. I had just come back to training after I fought Arlovski. I had broken my hand during that fight and it was my first week back off that injury. Alistair came in on Meat Night, and I had already heard about him so I told my coaches, ‘I don’t want to train with him.’ I had seen how he treated people and I didn’t like him.

He would belittle people, and wasn’t respectful at all,” Johnson continued. “My trainer, Henri Hooft was training with us. Now Henri has a bad stomach; he’s had a lot of stomach issues, had surgery and whatnot. He had been working with Alistair, and everyone in that gym knows Henri has a bad stomach, so we know not to go hard, especially in his midsection.

Right off the bat, Alistair got him in a clinch and threw a hard knee, BAM! right in his stomach. I’m like, ‘Okay, strike 20.’ Then, I seen him in there, and Henri got out of position. Alistair moved where he was on Henri’s left side, but behind him, and he threw a punch. That punch was straight at the back of Henri’s head. That was the moment I knew that I fucking hated this guy. I don’t have respect for anybody like that.”

Johnson then goes on to talk about Overeem’s incident in training with Guto Inocente. The former Strikeforce champion blew the Brazilian’s knee out in a sparring session after taking him down when it was striking only. The 30-year old says it’s hard to respect someone when you know things such as that. That’s also one of the reasons why he would like to face the former Strikeforce champion.

“My partner,Guto Inocente was sparring with him. Guto is really smooth and technical. You wouldn’t know it by his last fight [laughs], but he is. I wasn’t there, but the guys in the gym said that Guto was piecing Alistair up. They said Alistair got frustrated and grabbed him by the knee and took him down hard. When he did that, he blew out Guto’s knee. He had to have surgery and everything after that. This was during stand-up practice. Why would you take him down when it’s just a striking session?

Stuff like that is hard to respect. He might have changed by going to Greg Jackson‘s. His losses may have humbled him, because that’s what happened to me. You lose a couple times, you get humble, quick. Maybe he’s changed, but as soon as I heard that he hurt Jon Jones and where he kneed Andrei Arlovski, I was like, ‘Damn that shit sounds familiar.”

“I would definitely take that fight because for me, it wouldn’t be about business. This would be personal for me because of the things that I’ve seen. I have nothing against him as a fighter. He trains hard, and I’m not stupid enough to think that he sucks. He’s still dangerous. It’s just that as a training partner, I’ve seen the things he’s done, and I have zero respect for that.”

With Johnson edging closer to a light-heavyweight title shot and Overeem’s descent down the heavyweight ladder, a fight between the two seems unlikely any time soon. But there is plenty of bad blood there in case the situation ever arises.