Ben Rothwell Talks “Dirty Street Fighter” Alistair Overeem
Coming in to UFC Fight Night 50, there really wasn’t much bad blood between heavyweight competitors Ben Rothwell and Alistair Overeem. The Dutch K-1 kickboxing champion was respectful of Rothwell’s ability, and “Big” just said he planned on taking care of business. TCOB he did, and in a big way, by putting “The Reem” to sleep just minutes in to their fight.
Rothwell’s odd celebration of his win indicated there was in fact some hard feelings between the two, as he dismissed Overeem and did a jig over his unconscious body. So why the theatrics? Well, Ben Rothwell claims that Alistair Overeem is a dirt fighter, as he spoke with Submission Radio, transcribed by MMAMania.com:
“I almost yelled at him in the fight. He was doing some real dirty push kicks to my knee, and it’s just a dirty move. It’s not honorable in my mind because this isn’t street fighting. Like street fighting, if you’re fighting in the street, I’m undefeated. And I will remain so, and if I’m not, it means I’m dead. If you want to fight like that, then I’m going to start. I’m gonna rip his eyes out, I’m gonna pull his jugular out with my teeth, and I’m gonna break things on him. I’m gonna start snapping fingers and it’ll be a lot worse on him. And throwing push kicks at the knee joint is kinda like, to me it’s the same dirty message. It’s like you don’t do that, and I almost said something to him during the fight like ‘really?’ like ‘you’re gonna play like that?’ and I luckily ended him before he got to do it anymore.”
That certainly explains why “Big” felt like he should rub Overeem’s loss in with a funky little dance, but the street fighting tactics he spoke about weren’t exactly obvious for me as a viewer. This isn’t the first time that a UFC fighter has made these kind of accusations, as Vitor Belfort famously said that Jon Jones used the illegal kick to the knee joint when they fought at UFC 152.
Perhaps “The Reem” was chucking in some dirty moves during their encounter at Fight Night 50, but it certainly didn’t pay off for him. Overeem suffered his third KO loss in four fights, and is riding close to the edge as far as his UFC job is concerned. Highlights of Ben Rothwell vs Alistair Overeem can be watched here, and here is a GIF of Rothwell’s funky jig after the fact:
