Bas Rutten Talks Alistair Overeem’s Title Chances: “He’s Got All The Qualities To Do It”

With Alistair Overeem’s recent win over Stefan Struve at UFC on FOX 13, many fans have wondered if the win was a momentum builder for ‘The Reem’ to relaunch his career.

Legendary MMA fighter, and MMA personality Bas Rutten spoke recently about Overeem’s career, his win over Struve, and what it will take for Overeem to become a UFC champion.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t see the last fight and it’s because Ive been gone for the last 12 days. I’ve been travelling”

“You have to also understand, Sturve went in; I don’t think he went in 100 precent confident, just because of what he had in the past. He had the heart problem, and then the last fight in his dressing room he suddenly started hyperventilating and something was wrong there. And I think it also creeps in a fighter’s mind. Maybe he was insecure going in as well. But still, Overeem looked better in the fight before that also. He doesn’t focus – thank god – anymore on all the power strikes. He just needs to go back to his roots what they taught him at Holland is what I always say. Just single shots. Because everything he throws is hard. He has so much power. If he throws a left, keep the right hand up. If he throws the right hand, keep the left hand up. As soon as he starts making combinations, he leaves himself open and that’s when he gets hit. That’s how he got knocked out a few times now. When a guy like that, with striking skills like that comes to America – and I’m not saying anything bad about America’s striking skills – but there’s not many heavyweights that are really good at striking. So if he comes here and he trains with guys who are the low end, you know I don’t think he’ll learn a lot from it. Yeah, then you can start giving combinations, because everybody’s just scared of you. Like in Holland, he needed to be scared as well. Because with this guy, [if] you make a mistake, they’re going to knock you down, you know? And these guys go pretty hard. Once they start hard, well then everybody goes hard, you know. So yeah listen, he’s got all the qualities to do it, it’s just his mind. Can he keep it together? Can he keep doing it without PED’s? Because that pretty much really launched his career also, and suddenly being without it; I think it’s a big change for him. But you know, he looked much better in his last two fights, yeah.”

Do you think Alistair Overeem still has what it takes to become a UFC champion?

– via Submission Radio