A heavyweight fight between Alistair Overeem and Curtis Blaydes was supposed to take place on the main card. But earlier this week UFC announced that the women’s featherweight contest between Holly Holm and Megan Anderson move up to the main card, and thus Overeem bout dropped to FS1 prelims. “The Reem” didn’t seem too bothered by the news.
Overeem spoke to MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour this week, explaining his stance that he no issue losing a main card spot on the Pay-Per-View portion of the event to his teammate. He instead prefers to step into the Octagon earlier, than later.
“People are seeing that as an insult, while I’m just seeing it as there’s probably a business rationale behind that. It’s all good with me. To be honest, I perform better the earlier in the evening. If it’s all the way at midnight, I have to fight at midnight, I hate that anyways. If I’m fighting at 6 p.m., that’s perfect for me. Let me fight at 6 p.m. or even 4 p.m. I prefer fighting at 11 a.m.”
Overeem is coming off a devastating first-round knockout to Francis Ngannou at UFC 218 last December. Meanwhile, Blaydes is riding on a three-fight winning streak and has not tasted a defeat since he made his UFC debut against Ngannou back in April 2016.
“I was a little bit surprised about the decision, but when I think about it, I can see where the UFC is coming from,” Overeem said. “They want to build the women’s featherweight division. My friend Holly Holm, of course, and [JacksonWink] teammate being a big name. So, she shouldn’t be on the prelims anyway. To me personally, I don’t have a problem with the decision, because it’s gonna be on free TV it might be a bigger audience, right?”
UFC 225 is set to take place at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois on June 9th. The main card features by middleweight title fight between current champion Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero.
Do you think UFC made a right decision by shifting Alistair Overeem Vs Curtis Blaydes bout to Prelims?
