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?

Fight-day installments of the Danavlog tend to be a lot more interesting than other episodes from the previous week, and the 1/17 video was no exception. It opens with DW chatting with Michael Bisping before they do a demonstration of UFC Undisputed in Dublin. Bisping reminisces about the days when he was unbeatable at Street Fighter II. He’s also pleased with the U.K. team that he’ll be coaching on TUF, and very psyched to be a part of it. During the video game demo, Dana White plays as Quinton Jackson, while the Count plays as himself. The simulated fight goes pretty much how it would if Bisping were to actually fight Rampage.

At the fights, Alistair Overeem stops by to to say hello to the UFC prez; giddy as a schoolgirl, Dana starts squeezing his muscles. Overeem points out that he’s not as big as Brock Lesnar. Dana asks him if he’s ready to fight in the UFC, and Overeem says he is if management can work it out. K-1 super-heavyweight champ Semmy Schilt is also in attendance, and Dana makes it clear that he’d be welcome in the Octagon too. Later, Joe Rogan brutally mocks a Dana White superfan directly behind her back, Mauricio Rua is offered the Chuck Liddell fight, and Dana calls Dublin "pound-for-pound the best fuckin’ place we’ve ever been."

After the jump: The trailer for Ultimate Champion, another underground cage-fighting flick starring master thespian Stephan Bonnar. One day, the Wayans Brothers are going to make a parody of these movies and call it Never Submit, Surrender, or Back Down While Fighting Your Redbelt in the Confessions of a Pit Fighter. Hey, if Paul Blart can be the #1 movie in America…

(‘This guy…..appears to be wearing some kind of weird robe.’)

Dana White and Alistair Oveerem are living it up at UFC 93 in this picture from our friends at Free Fight Videos.  Semmy Schilt also made it out to the event, but man does Dana ever look chummy with "The Demolition Man."  Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but does the look on Overeem’s face say, ‘I’m putting my arm around this man because he is my new boss,’ to you?

(‘You think I read book, but really in here is nudie magazine.’)

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has had knee surgery and will soon be ready to kick asses and heads once more, though not necessarily in that order.  Now that this lingering problem is fixed we ought to find out if Cro Cop’s recent decline was really due to injuries, or if he’s just losing his touch.  Call me an optimist, but I’m hoping it’s the former.

According to internet rumors, Cro Cop may be headed back to the UFC for the summer event in Germany, or FEG may still be courting him, hoping for a K-1 match with Alistair Overeem and a few more fights in Dream down the road.  That’s all just speculation, though, so don’t get too worked up just yet.  It’s like that old saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him Cro Cop’s plans.

In case you’re curious, the book he’s reading appears to be entitled “Secret Societies.”  Anybody else reads that book, I chalk it up to intellectual curiosity.  But when Cro Cop reads it, I can only assume that he’s doing research for when he infiltrates the Croatian version of the Skull and Bones to take them down from the inside as revenge for killing his brother.  Anyone else smell a plot for an awesome action movie here?

(Photo courtesy of Fight Sport.)

Now that an eventful 2008 is in the books, Alistair Overeem tells DreamFighters.com that he plans to take a little rest, go on vacation, and maybe even swing on over the Ireland to catch UFC 93 on January 17th.  Lest you think it’s purely a sight-seeing trip, the Dutch fighter says his management team has been in talks with the UFC and Affliction, and Overeem says he’s up for fighting everyone from Fedor Emelianenko to Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir.  

After seeing a very bulky Overeem destroy Badr Hari on New Year’s Eve, we can’t deny that we’d like to see him added to the UFC’s heavyweight stable.  Even signing with Affliction would offer him a fresh list of opponents and probably a nice paycheck, though who knows for how long.  But you put a guy like Overeem into the UFC’s heavyweight division and suddenly you have a lot of interesting match-ups on the horizon, and they’d be particularly helpful in the UFC’s European expansion attempts.

Overeem isn’t the only one thinking about stepping into the Octagon, however, as his old rival Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic says he’ll likely retire in 2009, and would like to have one more fight in the UFC before he does.

I don’t want to speculate as to what kind of diet Alistair Overeem has been on, but as Robert from Free Fight Videos points out with this helpful timeline, dude has gotten progressively bigger over the last few years.  He dwarfed Badr Hari when they squared off at Fields Dynamite, weighing in at 254.3 lbs for the fight.  This is a guy who used to be tall and lanky.  Now he’s a mountain of muscle, with a noticeably bulkier face, and the transformation has happened mostly while fighting in Japan.  There, I said it. It’s now officially MMA news.

Just take a look at this video of Overeem’s fight with Chuck Liddell back in 2003.  He looks like a beanpole compared with the monster who knocked out Hari.  They must have some really excellent weight-gainer shakes in Holland…

Wow.  Who would have thought that a) we’d ever see Mark Hunt get knocked out by something as simple as a left hook-straight right combo, b) in the opening seconds of a fight, and c) by a middleweight.  This is the guy who walked right through a Cro Cop high kick.  Hats off to Melvin Manhoef.  Maybe now he’ll get that fight with Kimbo Slice that he wants. 

More videos from Fields Dynamite 2008 after the jump.

(Shockingly, this wasn’t the best fight of the night. Photo courtesy of CageWriter.) 

Total Bummer Update: The fight between DREAM lightweight champion Joachim Hansen and Gesias Cavalcante was canceled. Hansen did not pass a pre-fight medical examination, reportedly due to a recent hospitalization for a head injury. So that sucks.

K-1 Youth Tournament
Reserve fight: Taishi Hiratsuka def. Daizo Sasaki via KO, 1:00 of round 2
Semi-final 1: Koya Urabe def. Tatsuya Kusakabe via TKO, 2:21 of round 3
Semi-final 2: Hiroya def. Shota Shimada via unanimous decision
Final: Hiroya def. Koya Urabe via unanimous decision

DREAM rules: Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa def. Errol Zimmerman via submission (toe-hold), 1:01 of round 1

K-1 rules: Artur Kyshenko def. Yoshihiro Sato via unanimous decision

DREAM rules: Daisuke Nakamura def. Hideo Tokoro via submission (armbar), 2:23 of round 1

DREAM rules: Andy Ologun def. Yukio Sakaguchi via KO, 3:52 of round 1

DREAM rules: Bob Sapp def. Akihito Tanaka (aka "Kinniku Mantaro") via TKO, 5:22 of round 1. Tanaka put Sapp in trouble early with takedowns and ground-and-pound, but Sapp was able to get to his feet and tag Kinnikuman with some of his big, wild punches against the ropes until the fight was stopped.

DREAM rules: Semmy Schilt def. Siala "Mighty Mo" Siliga via submission (triangle choke), 5:31 of round 1

DREAM rules: Hayato Sakurai def. Katsuyori Shibata via TKO, 7:01 of round 1

K-1 rules: Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Kozo Takeda via TKO, 2:37 of round 1. Kawajiri dropped Takeda twice with punches in the first round, then once more with a flying knee. It was the first in a series of dominant victories by MMA fighters in kickboxing matches at Dynamite!! 2008.

(Overeem during his losing effort against Chuck Liddell at PRIDE Total Elimination 2003. Photo courtesy of AlistairOvereem.com.)

Though Alistair Overeem’s New Year’s Eve rematch with Mirko Cro Cop never panned out, another heavyweight match has been added to Fields Dynamite!! 2008 that almost makes up for it. In a new post on his website, Overeem writes:

In their most recent bouts, Overeem kneed Cro Cop’s nuts up into his chest cavity, while Hari was disqualified for using PRIDE rules in a K-1 match. I say K-1/FEG should also book Gilbert Yvel vs. Mike Kyle, and hold a four-man tournament to crown the World’s Dirtiest Fighter. Maybe the finals could be a fight to the death. What, you wouldn’t pay thirty bucks to spend New Year’s Eve watching that on your computer?

All respect to Overeem for stepping up and agreeing to fight Badr Hari on Hari’s terms, but the Demolition Man is in for a world of hurt. When they have their MMA-rules bout next year, it’ll be a different story, as Overeem is pretty damn handy with a choke-hold. In a standup-only fight, however, it’ll probably be all Hari. It’s strange that K-1, who just finished stripping Hari of his heavyweight title and prize money, are basically letting the dude call his shots for the Overeem fight — why not hold the MMA match first, as punishment? But business is business, and Hari’s nasty DQ probably increased his drawing power more than any respectable victory ever could.

(See, this is why we don’t hang out any more, Alistair. You get three beers in you and boom, the shirt’s off and you’re flexing again. It gets old, man.)

Adamantly refusing to play the role of the good guy in this feud, Alistair Overeem is once more accusing Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic of faking his injuries in their fight and ducking a rematch.  The Dutch fighter tells Fighters Only that Cro Cop signing to face Hong Man Choi is another sign that he doesn’t want any part of “The Demolition Man” after getting abused in their first meeting, before it was eventually stopped due to severe testicular damage brought on my Overeem’s misplaced knee strikes:

“Like I’ve always said, he doesn’t want to fight me… CroCop faked his injuries in our previous fight and now he has chosen not to fight me and instead fight Choi. He knows very well he doesn’t stand a chance against me… I would love to have a rematch but I seriously doubt if he will ever accept. For me he is not a objective anymore.”

While it’s true that Overeem was beating Cro Cop soundly before the illegal blows, calling the man a faker seems contrary to the video evidence we’ve seen, which clearly shows a hard shot in the pills.  The word after the fight was that one of Cro Cop’s testicles was possibly seriously injured after being forced inside his body.  You just can’t fake that.

Cro Cop swears he wants this rematch, and has even invited Overeem to his own special basement cage to settle the deal.  Overeem understandably turned down this offer to fight for free in his enemy’s home gym, but something is keeping this rematch from happening.  If it’s truly the people at FEG, they should have their heads examined.  Probably not by the same doctor who examined Cro Cop’s balls, though.  I hear he hasn’t been the same since.

(At ease, boys.)

Though the smack talk between Alistair Overeem and Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic has been heating up ever since their testicle-smashing meeting in September, it appears that Dream is not interested in a rematch on New Year’s Eve.  At a press conference an FEG executive said that Overeem is "begging" for the fight, but for reasons all their own Dream has decided to hold off on this one.

Fed up with Overeem’s insinuations that he’s ducking the fight, Cro Cop has gone so far as to invite his Dutch friend down to his basement where they can square off in Cro Cop’s own personal cage with "neutral referees."  As awesome as that sounds, and as perfect a plot for an action movie as it would be, it seems doubtful that Overeem will go for it.  Word is he’ll actually have a paying fight on New Year’s against Sergei Kharitonov.

(They aren’t there to protect “Cro Cop” from you. They’re there to protect you from “Cro Cop”.)

Despite having one of his testicles relocated to the inside of his body by Alistair Overeem‘s low blows during their last meeting, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic says when they go around again this New Year’s Eve at K-1 Dynamite it’s oddly not his junk that he’s worried about. In an interview with a Croatian website, then translated on MMA Fanhouse, Cro Cop says his trick knee has been acting up and that he’ll have to undergo another surgery on it immediately after the fight with Overeem:

“The advice I got from my doctors was that fighting Overeem only two months after my knee operation was a suicide mission. I already had missed the July bout and postponing my September bout was not an option for me. I have only myself to blame.”

“I’ve had several operations this year, and I’ll have to undergo another one straight after the NYE event. It’s frustrating to have to undergo all these operations but that’s the sportsman’s life. Many others have had it worse then me.

“Sportsman” seems like an odd translation in this context. I have an uncle who’s really into fishing. He calls himself a sportsman. Other than a love of pranks involving the threat of violence, my uncle and Cro Cop really have nothing at all in common.

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Answer: Quite broken. Like, so broken that he might not be recovered in time to rematch Alistair Overeem on New Year’s Eve. First, there’s this interview with Filipovic (from dnevnik.hr, translated by Robert at betwwx.com) where he recounts the fight-stopping injury at DREAM.6 and stresses that he absolutely wasn’t faking to get out of the match:

“The third strike to my balls was very strong…I know some people were saying that I was saved by the fact the match was ended. There was blood, but those cuts were nothing…I wasn’t hurt until I got hit in the nuts. The third strike into the nuts was very powerful and the biggest problem was that the cup squashed my nuts…I need to go to the hospital for some check ups. I still have some problems, I pissed blood, but thats all part of the job.”

MMA Convert (via Fightlinker) passes along more details about those check-ups, and things aren’t sounding too pleasant:

Mirko will have to undergo a testicle exam which got injured in the Overeem fight. Mirko’s genitals still hurt a lot says Dr. Zeljko Kapulica.

“Mirko’s left testicle is still hurting and I have to examine it to determine whether it’s stable in the scrotum; complications might occur if the testicle rotates and clogs the blood vessels. Also I need to check if the inguinal canal in which his tescticle was pushed in is open because it could lead to a hernia.”

Gross. At this point, Cro Cop’s life is imitating Ow! My Balls! Between this and the Cheick Kongo fight at UFC 75, his nards are like supermagnets for knees. Nobody wants to go out on such a low point, but could this be a sign that you maybe need to reconsider the way you make a living?

(‘This is my hammer. I call her Sheila. You do not want to make Sheila angry.’)

Knees to the groin aside, Alistair Overeem isn’t buying Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic‘s claims that he could not continue during last night’s Dream.6 bout. Cro Cop’s anguish looked pretty genuine, and Overeem’s knees seemed intent on finding his testicles, but Fighters Only reports that the Dutchman thinks dude was faking it in order to get out of a beating:

“Tonight I was kicking his ass, I destroyed him. …The first knee was in the crotch but the second was not. CroCop just didn’t want to fight anymore.”

“I think he underestimated me, but if he wants to fight again, I’ll fight him again. I’d like to finish him.”

Overeem was dominating the fight. That much seems apparent, though Cro Cop would have us believe that he was just biding his time and waiting for the right moment to stop getting his ass kicked.

But whatever you think of Cro Cop and his ethical code, that knee strike was clearly in the groin neighborhood. A cursory examination of the video evidence proves that much. Even if Overeem feels that he didn’t get him right on the buttons, as it were, he’s got to concede that Cro Cop might have been just a little extra sensitive in the testicular region at that point in the fight, seeing as how he’d already been nailed there. Nobody likes to see a fight end like that, especially the guy who leaves the ring with one of his testicles inside his body, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Gegard Mousasi vs. Melvin Manhoef

Zelg Galesic vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza

The conclusion of Dream.6′s middleweight Grand Prix, plus more, after the jump.

Props: MMA Scraps

Armenian-Dutch fighter Gegard Mousasi put in a career-making performance at today’s DREAM.6 in Saitama, Japan, earning quick stoppage victories over Melvin Manhoef and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to win the middleweight grand prix. In his first fight of the night, Mousasi easily dominated Manhoef, quickly scoring a trip-takedown, then securing the mount and clamping on a triangle choke when Manhoef reversed the position. Manhoef attempted to slam out of it, but was forced to tap at the 1:28 mark. Meanwhile on the other side of the bracket, Souza enjoyed a similarly brief win over Croatian Zelg Galesic. After getting a double-leg takedown, Souza passed from guard to mount and snatched an armbar when Galesic tried to buck.

Both men moved into the GP finals relatively fresh — not that they needed to be. When Mousasi and Souza finally met in the last fight of the night, it seemed like Mousasi was in over his head, as Souza first slammed him then began to drop punches from half-guard. But Souza made the fatal error of standing up, and Mousasi caught him with a Hail Mary upkick that knocked Jacare out cold as he began to dive in for a punch.

DREAM.6′s non-tourney featured matches went pretty much as expected, with the stars beating up on the cans. Shinya Aoki returned to his flamboyantly winning ways, hopping on the back of WEC castoff Todd Moore and finishing him at the 1:10 mark with a neck crank. Jimmy Ambriz should be applauded for lasting over two minutes with Sergei Kharitonov, who battered The Titan with vicious strikes until Ambriz was forced to tap on the ground. After abusing him for most of the first round, Yoshihiro Akiyama submitted karate practitioner Masanori Tonooka (1-2), who, let’s just say, is no Lyoto Machida.

The only real surprise (and disappointment) was how the heavyweight feature between Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Alistair Overeem played out.

(“We’ll see who is bag of douche.”)

Dream’s sixth event — which goes down September 23rd in Saitama, Japan — may just feature its most compelling card yet. The show’s centerpiece is the semi-finals/finals of the middleweight grand prix, where Melvin Manhoef, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, and Zelg Galesic will do battle to crown a single champion. A welterweight strap will also be on the line, decided by the long-awaited match between Nick Diaz and Hayato “Mach” Sakurai. And now it looks like two big-name heavyweight bouts will be part of the action as well.

Over the weekend, PRIDE vet and reigning Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem revealed that he would be facing Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at Dream 6. Overeem and Cro Cop have been getting their trash-talk on lately — who isn’t these days? — with the Demolition Man calling Filipovic a “douche-bag” who ducked him in favor of fighting cans. Cro Cop hasn’t fought since March, when he earned his first post-UFC victory with a 56-second TKO rout of Japanese can Tatsuya Mizuno. Since then, Overeem has competed and won twice, scoring a quick knockout of Tae Hyun Lee at Dream 4 in June, and an almost-as-quick submission of Mark Hunt at Dream 5 in July.

This month’s Dream card will also feature the return of Russian PRIDE standout Sergei Kharitonov, who hasn’t fought since his TKO victory over Alistair Overeem at a K-1 HERO’s event last September. Kharitonov will be facing Siala-Mou “Mighty Mo” Siligia, the Samoan-American K-1 mainstay who defeated Justice Smith last month at the K-1 World GP 2008 in Hawaii. Mo is just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, and hasn’t done the MMA thing since last June, when he beat down Ruben Villareal at K-1 Dynamite!! USA.

MMA highlight-video master Genghis Con — whose nuts we’ve hugged in the past — went on the UG yesterday to plug his new video, which documents the “Beef” between Georges St. Pierre and Matt Serra. It’s as amazing as you’d expect, but while poking around his previous works, we came upon “Grand Theft Title 2,” an absolute gem from last year which focuses on Mauricio “Shogun” Rua’s killing spree in PRIDE’s 2005 Grand Prix, where he took out Quinton Jackson (at Total Elimination), Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (at Critical Countdown), and then Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona in the same night (at Final Conflict); you can watch it above.

The GTA video game theme allows for fun touches like the “Change View” at -8:23 and “Unlocked: Foot Stomps” at -7:05, but the use of Liberty City‘s soundtrack really sets this one apart. How freaking cool is Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” playing during the Nogueira and Overeem fights? Con is on a whole ‘notha level. Anyway, check it out, tell a friend, and set aside some time to watch the rest.

(‘I am here to pick up your daughter. There is dowry, yes?’)

In a recent entry to his MMA-id.com blog, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic addresses his recovery (it’s going well) and the possibility of a fight with Alistair Overeem in Dream (he’s all for it). But what’s more interesting is that Cro Cop seems well-aware that most MMA fans believe his best days are behind him and, dammit, he’s motivated by it:

I see many people speaking about me as a washed-up fighter but this is just another boost to my motivation. I’m working hard to get back on track and meeting and defeating strong competitors in the ring is all that I think of nowdays.

Man, of all the once-heralded, now-mostly-forgotten fighters from Pride, the collapse of Cro Cop has to be the most disappointing. If it takes us saying that to get him to become a serious fighter again (and no, scheduling and then pulling out of grappling matches against members of the Gracie family doesn’t count), then it’s worth it. Even if Cro Cop gets mad and plays crazy pranks involving assault rifles on us:

Cro Cop Assault Rifle Prank – Watch more free videos

(Alvarez vs. Kawajiri: Fight of the Night. Props to MMA-Core.)

Chaos rules when it comes to single-night tournaments, and today’s DREAM.5 show in Osaka was marked by an unexpected twist — lightweight grand prix alternate Joachim Hansen defeated crowd-favorite Shinya Aoki in the finals to become DREAM’s first lightweight champion, following an eye injury suffered by Eddie Alvarez in his semifinal match.

The first semifinal bout was dominated by Aoki, who threw his entire bag of submissions at Caol Uno, threatening Uno repeatedly with chokes, leglocks and armbars. Uno hung in like a champ, but the judges made the obvious choice when the clock ran out, and an exhausted Aoki advanced to the finals.

In the second semifinal, the Philadelphia-based Eddie Alvarez proved that he should be counted among the world’s best lightweights, getting the best of Tatsuya Kawajiri in a thrilling slugfest. Alvarez suffered a cut under his right eye early by Kawajiri’s nasty power punches, but Alvarez dropped Kawajiri with his own. After time was called for Alvarez’s eye to be checked out, the fight-restarted with Kawajiri taking control again, punching Alvarez to the mat and swarming him from the top. Alvarez eventually got to his feet, taking heavy damage in return. But Alvarez battled back, throwing his fists until Kawajiri succumbed. Unfortunately, it was later announced that Alvarez wouldn’t be able to continue to the finals because his eye was swollen shut.

The tournament’s alternate bout saw Joachim Hansen withstand an early assault by Indian fighter Kultar “Black Mamba” Gill; Hellboy quickly regained control and put away his outmatched opponent via armbar at the 2:33 mark. Hansen, who had lost to Alvarez at the lightweight GP quarterfinals in May, would now be replacing him in the finals.

(“Wii Fit not as easy as looks.”)

DREAM.5 is only three days away — not the most convenient time for the lineup to fall apart. First, the bad news: Featherweight star Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto (pictured above) has injured his right knee in training and won’t fight at Monday’s show; the injury might put him on ice for six months. Even worse, a feature in the forthcoming issue of the Japanese tabloid Shukan Gendai alleges that Yamamoto is a regular user of marijuana. (Apparently, that’s looked down on over there; we Americans revere marijuana for its glaucoma-easing and gogoplata-inspiring properties.) Yamamoto last fought at K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! (12/31/07), where he smoked Rani Yahya via TKO.

Featherweight Hideo Tokoro is also in danger of dropping from the card, as he was rear-ended while driving on Wednesday, and suffered a back injury could take a week to heal completely. Strangely enough, FightOpinion reports that Tokoro’s scheduled bout against Takeshi Yamazaki was being promoted as an “ikemen” (hot guy) match. And if that’s what it takes to sell fights in Japan, I think I’m going to arrange a superfight between Hard Gay and Bruno.

Chuck Liddell is now saying that his next fight could be against Shogun in June — which would be a hell of a lot more interesting than Jardine. Since we haven’t featured Rua on F.o.t.D. lately, here’s his match with Alistair Overeem at PRIDE 33 (2/24/07). Though Overeem dominated early with his striking, Rua eventually got the Demolition Man on his back and punished him with strikes from the top. The fight starts at the 5:14 mark:

UPDATE: The Liddell/Rua fight is official. Nice! Judging from their last fights, the Iceman will smoke Shogun like a pork shoulder…