(Semmy Schilt vs. Badr Hari. Props: 19054771 via BloodyElbow)

K-1 legend Semmy Schilt made history today in Yokohama, picking up his fourth K-1 World Grand Prix title — tying him with Ernesto Hoost, who was also a four-time champ — and doing it faster than any other kickboxer before him. Schilt needed just 5:52 of combined fight time to tear apart Jerome Le Banner, defending World GP champion Remy Bonjasky, and Badr Hari; not exactly an easy draw for the 6’11" Dutchman. The final-round victory over Hari avenged a 45-second knockout loss to the Golden Boy that Schilt suffered earlier this year at It’s Showtime 2009 Amsterdam.

Despite all the horsemeat, Alistair Overeem only made it to the semi-finals of today’s tournament. The Demolition Man came out in ferocious fashion, putting Ewerton Teixeira to sleep with a thunderous knee in the quarterfinals. But his semi-final match against old nemesis Badr Hari didn’t go so well. After throwing Hari to the mat on two separate occasions, Overeem was dropped with a right hook to the ear. Forty-five seconds later, Hari landed a left head kick that wobbled Overeem into the turnbuckle, forcing the ref to jump in and stop the fight. Full results and lots more videos after the jump…

Interview With Scott Coker After Fedor vs. Rogers – Watch more Funny Videos

Following the Fedor vs. Rogers press conference on Saturday night (more on that later), I was one of several MMA scribblers to corner Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker for a family-style follow-up interview. Some highlights are above: Coker revealed that Marloes Coenen will be the next challenger to Cris Cyborg‘s 145-pound women’s title, threatened that he would be Strikeforce’s heavyweight champion if Alistair Overeem continues his shucking and ducking, and gave his generally positive analysis of Strikeforce’s first CBS show. Regarding his rivalry with the UFC, Coker says "Every day when I wake up, I’m thinking about what Strikeforce needs to do, not what somebody else needs to do, or another company’s doing" — which seems a lot more pleasant than Dana White’s morning routine. More viddys to come…

(Props: DrTurboFightChannel)

Before he was a spinach-eating heavyweight wrecking machine, Alistair Overeem was just a wiry kid with a dream. Here’s the video of his MMA debut at the age of 19 against the very insane-looking Ricardo Fyeet, at the first "It’s Showtime" event in the Netherlands in October 1999. It’s amazing to see how far Overeem has come in the last ten years. Check out his broke-ass gong-and-dash when the fight starts at the 1:45 mark, and that sad attempt at a guard-pull at 3:01. In what would later become a recurring theme, the Demolition Man manages to finish his opponent by guillotine choke. Overeem didn’t have long to savor the victory; he fought again just four days later at a Rings event in Tokyo, losing to Iouri Kotchkine by majority decision.

(Overeem, pictured here shortly after eating the 2003 version of himself.)

After winning his second meaningless fight via standing guillotine choke in as many weekends, Alistair Overeem voiced his desire to fight Fedor Emelianenko in April of 2010.  Beyond just the specificity of that request, what’s interesting is that he followed up by saying that if he had his choice he’d rather do the fight in Dream than in Strikeforce.  Not surprisingly, Dream’s Keiichi Sasahara would prefer that too, saying, “I’ll do what I can to make that happen in the near future.”

Wouldn’t that just be a kick in the pills for Scott Coker and his crew?  They go to all this trouble to sign and then promote Fedor through their CBS connections, and they spend over two years waiting for Overeem to come back and defend his heavyweight title, and then Strikeforce’s new partner threatens to swoop in and steal the fight. 

(Overeem vs. Thompson. Props to DreamCageFights. And special props to Michael Schiavello for predicting that this fight wouldn’t last long. How the hell did he see that one coming?!?)

- Alistair Overeem def. James Thompson via submission (guillotine choke), 0:33 of round 1
- Eddie Alvarez def. Katsunori Kikuno via submission (arm-triangle choke), 3:42 of round 2 
- Marius Zaromskis def. Myeon Ho Bae via KO (head kick), 0:19 of round 1 
- Kazushi Sakuraba def. Zelg Galesic via submission (kneebar), 1:40 of round 1 
- Katsuyori Shibata def. Tokimitsu Ishizawa via TKO, 4:52 of round 1 
- Dong Sik Yoon def. Tarec Saffiedine via split decision 
- Yoshiro Maeda def. Chase Beebe via submission (rear-naked choke), 3:36 of round 1 
- Kuniyoshi Hironaka def. Won Sik Park via TKO (eye injury), 5:00 of round 1
- Tomoya Miyashita def. Keisuke Fujiwara via unanimous decision

More fight videos after the jump…

(Man that thing’s hideous.)

British slugger James Thompson has lost his last four fights, and eight of his last ten. His career highlights include getting pwned in 11 seconds by Aleksander Emelianenko, accidentally starting a riot in Montreal, and losing to Kimbo Slice. All of which makes him an ideal candidate for Alistair Overeem‘s next victim. MMA Fanhouse is reporting that Overeem’s "TBA" opponent for this coming Sunday’s Dream.12 show will be The Colossus, who most recently got knocked out by Jim York at Sengoku 7. (Video of that fight is after the jump; yep, he’s still doing that ridiculous gong-and-dash thing.) We don’t expect Overeem vs. Thompson to play out much differently than Overeem vs. Sylvester; it’ll be a deadly striker vs. a befuddled brawler, and Big James is going to leave the ring with yet another concussion to add to his vast collection of brain injuries.

(Now that’s what a commitment to deadpan looks like. Props: Kamipro.com)

Dream’s great experiment inside a cage is now less than a week away, and though they’re inching closer they still haven’t finalized the complete lineup.  The most recent addition is Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba taking on Croatian striker Zelg Galesic.  Galesic was originally slated to face Melvin Manhoef who, like a couple other participants who appeared on the promotional poster, has since pulled out.  Instead, Sakuraba will go directly from fighting a pro boxer with no idea that leg kicks actually hurt, to fighting a guy who has what it takes to give him another Manhoef-style beating like the one that probably should have heralded the end of his career.  So basically, if there’s anything you’ve been wanting to say to Sakuraba, you better go ahead and say it now while you still have the chance.

Meanwhile, Alistair Overeem will head to Japan fresh off his assault on Tony Sylvester at Ultimate Glory 11 this weekend, and still there’s no word on who he’ll be facing when he steps in the white cage on Sunday.  Since the odds of Dream booking a top-ten heavyweight on less than a week’s notice aren’t all that great, it’s probably safe to say that Overeem will be getting his second squash match in as many weekends.  Maybe the reason he’s avoiding the U.S. isn’t fear of drug tests.  Maybe he just likes beating up on guys who are nowhere near his skill-level and getting paid for it.  Not having to pee in a cup at the end of the night, that’s just a bonus.

The current line-up for Dream.12, courtesy of Nightmare of Battle, is looking like this:

(Props: MMA Turf. Apologies for the lack of sound.)

Well, we expected a pointless mismatch, and a pointless mismatch is what we got. Last night at Ultimate Glory 11 in Amsterdam, Alistair Overeem whipped Tony Sylvester as if he’d discovered the American fighter banging his wife and keying his car at the same time. Sylvester was only able to get off one leg-kick during the 83-second execution, which was marked by Overeem breaking down his opponent with knees in the clinch before ending the fight with a standing guillotine. There’s an odd moment at the 0:52 mark of the above video in which the referee seems to wave off the bout before separating the fighters so that Sylvester can take more abuse. Damn, maybe Sam Hoger would have put up a better fight after all. Overeem is now slated to compete next Sunday at DREAM.12 against an opponent who’s still TBA. (I guess they’re still checking on Canseco‘s availability?) Full results from Ultimate Glory 11 are after the jump…

(Overeem’s last Strikeforce appearance, vs. Paul Buentello on 11/16/07.)

It’s no secret that Alistair Overeem isn’t exactly eager to come back to the U.S. to defend the Strikeforce heavyweight title that he won and then absconded to Europe with almost two years ago, but hey, maybe Brett Rogers’ recent shucking and ducking accusations might be enough to get him to consider putting that belt up for grabs again, right?  Wrong, sucka.  Very, very wrong.  Not only is Overeem not even going to respond to Rogers (sounds like someone else we know), he lets us all know straight up that fighting in Strikeforce is at the very bottom of his to-do list right now: 

During the press conference you said you will not comment on Brett Rogers words, but I need to ask again. This doesn’t bother you? Him talking the smack on the internet about you and how you’re not defending your Strikeforce title? 

I will not comment on this, I am very busy with K-1 right now, with all the fight I have there. When there will be time to meet in the ring he will see. For now, I will not comment. I am very busy these days, i have a fight in Glory, then in DREAM.12 and after that I’ll fight in the K-1 Finals so I am very busy with training and fighting and I don’t have time for this bullshit.

First of all, if you have time to give interviews where you talk about how you’re not going to talk about something, then you have time to issue a response.  I mean, if you really wanted to.  Second, and most importantly, Overeem’s list of upcoming engagements makes it very clear that Strikeforce is the least important obligation on his dance card, which ought to be just plain embarrassing for Scott Coker and the boys.  Like cleaning out the garage, he keeps saying he’ll get to it eventually.  And yet he makes no movement whatsoever to put his shoes on and get to work.

(‘This guy’s totally rich or something, right? Right?’)

Wouldn’t you know it, the same day we dance on Tim Sylvia’s MMA grave, his name pops up in the news again, this time to say he may have either a very legitimate or very ridiculous fight in the works.  According to Sylvia’s manager, Monte Cox, Big Tim is in talks to head to Japan for a New Year’s Eve fight and Cox says he’s “pretty confident that he is going to fight there.”

What they don’t know is whether he’ll fight for Dream or Sengoku, but apparently Dream contractees Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi have both been discussed as possible opponents.  That means that he might get a real fight against the Strikeforce heavyweight champion (who, again, is avoiding fighting in the U.S. like he’s got some kind of Roman Polanski-esque legal troubles over here), or he’ll do the typical NYE freak show fight against Choi.  Those are two very different potential futures for Sylvia.  You’d hope that he would rather go the serious route if given the choice, but as we’ve seen in the past, Sylvia is not above taking a bout that makes no sense at all.

What do you say, would you rather see Sylvia in an absurd fight against Hong Man Choi, just to keep the New Year’s Eve tradition intact, or does Sylvia-Overeem really get your heart pumping?  Side question: if he does fight HMC, what are the odds that he joins Jose Canseco and Bobby Ologun on the “Techno Goliath’s” list of MMA victims?  Just saying, this is the guy who couldn’t close the deal with a hard-drinking strip club bartender on Blind Date,  so you better believe he knows how to screw up a sure thing.

(Either Alistair Overeem is facing an extra from "Over the Top" or else Google Image Search has seriously led us astray.)

Though Sam Hoger doesn’t like it, some benevolent force in the universe has intervened to keep Alistair Overeem from calmly handing him his ass at Golden Glory 11 next Saturday.  In his place will be 11-2 Ohio-based fighter Tony Sylvester, who is at least in the same weight class as Overeem, though that’s about where the similarities between he and “The Demolition Man” end.  While Sylvester’s record looks impressive at first glance, it doesn’t stay that way under closer inspection.  His most recent loss came via decision against Chris Tuchscherer in the abortion known as YAMMA Pit Fighting.  He rebounded with a first-round TKO win over Roger Minton in his last effort, but that was a) almost a year ago, and b) against a guy making his pro debut.

In fact, if you look at Sylvester’s recent fighting history, six of his last eight victories came against guys who currently have losing records.  And the other loss on his record?  It was against Tim “Big Perm” Persey, who, while he may be the proud owner of an awesome nickname, is not exactly a world-beater himself.  This isn’t to say that Sylvester is no good.  I mean, I guess he can’t really help it if the guys he beats happen to lose a bunch of fights before and after they face him.  But at the same time, this is the guy who’s going to fight Strikeforce (absentee) heavyweight champ and top ten heavyweight Alistair Overeem?

(Great, everybody’s got a belt or two. Big deal.)

The continuing saga of Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem gets weirder with each new chapter, and more and more it’s looking like he’s willing to do just about anything but fight in the United States.  More proof for that hypothesis comes by way of news that his next MMA fight may be against 8-4 UFC washout Sam Hoger.  Inside Fights says the fight has been verbally agreed to by both parties and will take place on an upcoming Shooto event.  We can’t help but think that Dream might be the more likely venue since they did make some vague promises recently about getting Overeem into their poorly designed cage later this month. 

On his Twitter page Hoger wrote that he “MAY have a date” with Overeem, and implored whoever might be reading that message not to “ruin it for me now.”  Unless one of Hoger’s 137 followers is in a management position at an MMA organization we’re not sure exactly how that would be possible, but for Christ’s sakes, if any of you Hoger fans have any pull, now’s the time to exert it.  Not only would this fight be a farce, but it might also be the kind of farce that results in Hoger taking his meals through a straw for the next several months.

(Even in the artist’s rendition nobody shows up for this.)

Behold, the hexagonal cage that will make its debut at Dream.12 on October 25.  Sure, it seems to have geometrical peculiarities that the Octagon doesn’t have, such as the two sides of the fence that are way longer than all the other sides, but at least they had the good sense not to refer to it as The Hex, which is still the most profoundly bad MMA marketing idea this side of The YAMMA.  According to Dream’s announcement, this cage won’t become their go-to surface for all events from now on.  Instead, they plan to hold one special cage event each year, presumably to keep that wrathful God(zilla?) from destroying their island nation.

In addition to their new cage, Dream.12 will supposedly feature fights that are three, five-minute rounds.  Right now they’ve got a pretty sweet lightweight fight between DEEP champ Katsunori Kikuno and Eddie Alvarez, along with a group of “planned participants” that includes Alistair Overeem, Marius Zaromskis, and crazy ass Paulo Filho.  In other words, it could be a pretty solid event if those guys all actually show up.  So why is Dream trying to become a half-assed version of the UFC?

At K-1′s "Final 16" event yesterday in Seoul, South Korea, Alistair Overeem once again proved his status as one of the world’s elite heavyweight strikers, easily defeating three-time K-1 World Grand Prix champion Peter Aerts via unanimous decision. With his win, Overeem advances to the eight-man bracket at the K-1 World Grand Prix Final in Yokohama on December 5th. He’ll face Ewerton Teixeira in the quarterfinals, and could potentially face rematches with Badr Hari and Remy Bonjasky in the same night; Hari knocked out Zabit Samedov at yesterday’s event to qualify for the Final 8, while defending Grand Prix champion Bonjasky scored a unanimous decision over Melvin Manhoef.

Full results of the Final 16, and videos of the Hari/Samedov and Bonjasky/Manhoef scraps are after the jump…

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

If we’ve learned anything by obsessively following MMA, it’s that a change in fighting surface is usually a sign that an organization is in serious trouble.  So when we saw this promo video for Dream.12 promising to “appease the wrath of God in rage” by putting their October 25 event in a cage, we got a little worried.  For several reasons, really.  Never let it be said that the Dream art director is afraid to take risks, but we have to wonder whether the decision to switch to a cage is a) permanent, and b) a sign of desperation.  

We also have to wonder what Dream’s basis is for advertising Alistair Overeem’s participation.  “The Demolition Man” is fighting in K-1 this weekend, and then he’s rumored to be going back to Holland for the Golden Glory ten-year anniversary show on October 17.   It’s hard to imagine that Overeem and his recovering hand would sign up for three fights in less than a month.  If we ask ourselves which party is most likely to be knowingly misleading people about what their next event will consist of, we’re probably going to say it’s the same people who made the weird artsy promo video about a wrathful God and the ways in which an island nation might appease Him.

(Image courtesy of Strikeforce.)

Now that Strikeforce has landed the greatest heavyweight in the world, they have to make sure that casual American fans care. To that end, Fedor Emelianenko may spend the first two fights of his initial three-fight deal with Strikeforce building his name before fighting for the organization’s heavyweight strap. According to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker on yesterday’s edition of TapouT Radio (via FiveOuncesofPain):

(‘If you see that son of a bitch Gallagher, tell him we need to talk.’)

There’s something to be learned from the cautionary tale of Alistair Overeem, and it’s this: if you’re going to get into a nightclub brawl in between title fights, at least have the sense to hit people with your elbows and not your fists.  Strikeforce officials confirmed today that Overeem will be unable to defend his heavyweight title on August 15 against Fabricio Werdum because the infection to the hand he injured on a bouncer’s face back in May still hasn’t healed. 

This means he’ll miss a second straight fight because of his street fighting antics, and the Strikeforce heavyweight strap that he won back in 2007 and has yet to defend will stay on the shelf…or will it?

(One of the few times when shucking and/or ducking would have been the better career move.)

Well, this train has pulled into the station right on time.  Not more than a couple hours after Strikeforce confirmed that Alistair Overeem would defend his heavyweight title against Fabricio Werdum, thus screwing over undefeated big man Brett Rogers, Rogers’ trainer/manager, Mike Reilly, has already responded exactly the way you probably expected him to:

"I don’t think Overeem was ever planning on fighting Brett," Reilly said. "I think Overeem is afraid of Brett. He’s afraid of a big striker who is going to knock him out. … I don’t think anyone is going to admit that, but I’m not going to shy away from it. He’s had two opportunities to fight Brett but he hasn’t taken either of [them]. … if I was Overeem, I would avoid Brett too. It’s a horrible f***ing fight for Overeem."

(Overeem vs. Werdum 1; Fabricio starts the fight with a flying kick at the 1:11 mark, and ends it with a kimura at 17:08.)

As first reported by MMA Fanhouse and confirmed shortly after via press release, Alistair Overeem will indeed be making his first Strikeforce heavyweight title defense on the main card of "Carano vs. Cyborg" (August 15th, San Jose). But get this — he’ll be taking on PRIDE/UFC vet Fabricio Werdum, not undefeated KO artist Brett Rogers as was originally speculated.

Overeem and Werdum already have a history together. In May 2006, they had a memorable battle in the opening round of PRIDE’s open-weight GP, with Werdum pulling out a kimura submission near the end of the second round. Said Overeem about the upcoming rematch: “I’m very happy that I’m being given the opportunity to fight him again and I’m looking forward to beating him. This is the one rematch I’ve wanted. I’m going to punish this guy.”

(Highlights from Playboy model LaTasha Marzolla’s MMA debut. Props: PureFight.org)

Xavier Foupa-Pokam’s stint with the UFC was almost as short as his time spent upright against Drew McFedries at UFC 98.  After suffering his second straight loss in as many fights “Professor X” has been cut from the organization and set adrift on the sea of free agency.  It’s a shame, considering the promise he showed in his pre-UFC fights, but the first-round TKO loss to McFedries was all the UFC needed to see in order to decide he wasn’t ready for the big time just yet. 

Speaking of McFedries, he got himself in hot water with his Miletich camp teammates by claiming that none of them were supporting him in the run-up to his UFC 98 bout.  Pat Miletich says that’s absolutely untrue, and it sounds like McFedries either needs to do some public apologizing or else find himself a new place to train.  MFS is brutal enough without having those guys genuinely pissed off at you.

In other MMA news…

(On second thought, no, I wasn’t going to finish my sandwich. Please, by all means. Props to Esther Lin.)

Last night, Strikeforce sent out a roundup of quotes from a media conference call held yesterday, where Scott Smith, Andrei Arlovski, and Brett Rogers took questions about their upcoming matchups on June 6th. While Arlovski didn’t say much other than he was excited for the fight and he should have stuck to his gameplan against Fedor, "The Grim" stole the show, discussing everything from his preparation for Arlovski to Alistair Overeem acting like a fool. Here are some highlights:

What are your thoughts on being offered this big step up in opposition?
Rogers: Once I got the phone call and Arlovski was set in stone, I was excited. I remember watching this guy at a younger age and thinking, ‘man I get to take on someone like that?’ He’s an explosive guy; he likes to move around. It’s definitely going to be a challenge, but nothing I don’t think I can handle. He’s big, slimmer guy. He likes to move, he likes to be quick and move his hands. I’m kind of mellow with the fighting stance, so it’s definitely going to be me taking my time and controlling the fight.’’

(Just before the nightclub brawl, Overeem also reportedly negged eight women and kino escalated on six.)

When it was announced that Alistair Overeem turned down a Strikeforce heavyweight title fight against Brett Rogers due to an injured hand, we thought it was one of those phantom injuries that mysteriously arises when someone asks you to fight a comparatively unknown up-and-comer on a month’s notice. But it turns out Overeem’s injury is very real. And there’s a pretty interesting story behind it. Fighter’s Only has the tale…

(The hazy glow in this picture can only mean one thing: we’ve stumbled into one of Nick Diaz’s dream sequences again.)

Strikeforce’s June 6 show is already shaping up to be as good or better than their debut on Showtime earlier this month.  In addition to the Jake Shields vs. Robbie Lawler main event, they’ve gotten verbal agreements from Nick Diaz and Scott Smith to face each other in a 180-pound bout.  Apparently the extra weight felt good on Diaz as he smashed Frank Shamrock’s face all to hell, which is a good thing since he’ll be taking on a guy in Smith who can definitely take a shot.  

(‘Oh no you didn’t, Alistair. And to think I cheered for you against Cro Cop.’)

It’s not quite as bad as Lyoto Machida admitting to drinking his own urine every single morning, but Alistair Overeem seems to have some unusual dietary issues all his own.  In a recent interview translated by Robert K, Overeem said he’s changed everything about his life, from his girlfriend to his coach to his diet.  Now he lives mainly on “horse meat, rice, and protein shakes.”  And here you thought your dog was the only one on an equine-centric diet.

Turns out that eating horse meat is popular in certain parts of the globe that are not called the United States (the Mongolians even make a horse milk wine, so there).  According to the always informative Wikipedia:

“Horse meat contains 20% more protein than high quality beef cuts, 25% less fat, nearly 20% less sodium, double the iron and less cholesterol. When compared to ground beef, horsemeat has 55% more protein, 25% less fat, 30% less cholesterol and 27% less sodium.”

That sounds all right, if you can get past the fact that you’re eating a freaking horse.  I guess there’s no real reason, aside from the psychological ones, that it should be any weirder than eating, say, a cow.  And look what it’s done for Overeem’s physique!

Wait a minute, you thinking what I’m thinking?  All that speculation about how Overeem managed to go from a tall, kind of skinny light heavyweight to a bulky beast of a heavyweight centered on the theory that he was injecting something.  But maybe it’s the horses who have been injecting something.  You know, in their desire to get huge, floss, and get mares.  It all makes sense now.  And you know those horses are always outside tanning and stuff.  They really are the Phil Baroni’s of the animal kingdom.

(‘And what is deal with airline food? Is no good, am I right?’)

Want to hear something totally insane and probably not true?  That was a rhetorical question.  Of course you want to hear this.  According to a Croatian newspaper article translated for us by Robert of betwwx.com, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic’s next bout will be this July in an Affliction/Dream co-promotional event full of all kinds of fights that only sort of make sense.  

The article quotes Cro Cop as saying that he’d like to fight four times this year (he knows it’s already mid-April and he’s fought zero times so far this year, right?) and five times in 2010, so the credibility of this report seems strained to begin with.  But then the article declares that the “only certainty” is a Cro Cop-Alistair Overeem rematch on a July 20 Affliction/Dream co-promotion in Japan.  Also on that card, according to this report, will be Fedor Emelianenko taking on Jeff Monson and Josh Barnett facing off against Andrei Arlovski.

Whoa, let’s back up a second, Croatian newspaper.  Now who’s this Fedor guy anyway and what has he done to deserve a shot at "The Snowman"?

("Y’know, I used to box a little myself. Say, do you party?" Photo courtesy of this great set on allelbows.)

If not for Cris Cyborg’s woman-problems fiasco, last night’s Strikeforce show would have been an unequivocal success. There were memorable knockouts, brilliant performances (we take back every bad thing we ever said about you, Nick), and one fight (Smith vs. Radach) that will probably make year-end lists as one of the best matches of 2009. Here are some of the stories coming out of the event…

— "Shamrock vs. Diaz" pulled in 15,211 fans for an estimated live gate of $750,000. Said Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker: "We scaled the tickets back for the economy to make it affordable…We tried to be considerate and make it affordable for everybody. Would we like to scale (up) the prices and bring in more revenue? There will be a time for that. We’ll keep building it."

— In the post-event press conference, Coker stated that he’d like to put together the much-anticipated bout between Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos for Strikeforce’s August event, and said it would be for "our first Strikeforce female title belt." As for the ongoing contract talks with Gina Carano, Coker said, "We’re currently negotiating the final touches of this contract. Hopefully we’ll get it to bed here in the next two weeks or a week. I think we’re very close."

— Also during the press-conference, recent Strikeforce signee Fabricio Werdum said that he’d like to be a future opponent for Alistair Overeem; Werdum previously submitted Overeem via kimura at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute in May 2006. Said Werdum: "I’m going to take the other arm home. And then the third time it’s going to be hard to fight with no arms at all." Overlooked once again, Brett Rogers said "Before everybody walks away, I mean I wouldn’t mind fighting Overeem. That would be nice right there." Awww, of course it would, big guy!

(Alistair Overeem presents Remy Bonjasky with the K-1 Oscar for "Best Acting" at today’s pre-event press conference. Bonjasky humbly accepts it, then accuses Overeem of steroid abuse. Yep, that should do it. Props to MMA Scraps for the video.)

The K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 goes down tomorrow in Yokohama, Japan, and will be broadcast live on HDNet. Because of the time difference, it’ll air late tonight in the U.S., at 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT. We’re not fucking vampires, so we’re going to set up the little magic box on our cable TV and watch this thing tomorrow. And it definitely will be worth watching, particularly for the heavyweight headliner between Alistair Overeem and Remy Bonjasky.

If you’ll recall, Overeem most recently scored a shocking first-round TKO over Badr Hari in a K-1 rules match at Fields Dynamite!! 2008 on New Year’s Eve; earlier that month, Hari had his K-1 heavyweight title stripped after he stomped and punched a downed Bonjasky at a K-1 World GP event. You’d think that these experiences would bring Overeem and Bonjasky together as friends, but as you can tell from the above video, not so much. Alistair thinks Remy faked his complaints of vision problems to pick up the DQ win against Hari, while Remy thinks Alistair faked his new muscles. Trash-talk aside, if Overeem can pull this off, it’ll prove that his demolition of Badr Hari was no fluke, and cement his new reputation as the Baddest Heavyweight Striker in the World. And when you have accolades like that, who needs to pass a drug test in the U.S.?

The World GP will also feature a four-man heavyweight tournament starring Melvin Manhoef, and a group of "superfights" that include Semmy Schilt, Jerome Le Banner, Peter Aerts, and Errol Zimmerman. The full fight order is after the jump, courtesy of NightmareOfBattle.

Though he’s being courted by both the UFC and Strikeforce, where he is the reigning heavyweight champ, Alistair Overeem will likely have his next fight back in the K-1 ring.  A report on MixFight.nl, translated by our trusty friend Robert at Free Fight Videos, says Overeem has accepted an offer to fight 2008 K-1 Grand Prix winner Remy Bonjasky at the end of March.

There’s no word yet on whether Bonjasky has officially agreed to the fight, and after seeing what Overeem did to the dude who stomped his head in the finals of the Grand Prix he might be having some doubts.  If he does take the fight he might want to try and bulk up first, considering what a monster Overeem has become.

The bad news for us MMA types is that this further delays Overeem’s return to the land of little gloves.  His recent fights have made me all the more eager to see him in against big time MMA heavyweights, either in the UFC or somewhere else, to see if he can keep up these performances against top-notch opponents in places where there are commissions and – I’ll just say it – drug tests.   Looks like the wait continues.

Just for shits and giggles, rewatch Overeem’s destruction of Badr Hari after the jump.  ‘Cause what else you got to do?