"Injured" Strikeforce Champ Alistair Overeem To Fight in Amsterdam in October, Seoul in September

Strikeforce heavyweight champ “Demolition Man” Alistair Overeem (27-10) will fight a yet-to-be-named opponent at Glory 11 in Amsterdam 17 October, Fighters.com has confirmed.

Sources close to the Dutch kickboxer also revealed exclusively to Fighters.com that Overeem is considering a kickboxing matchup versus “Dutch Lumberjack” Peter Aerts (1-1) at FieLDS K-1 World GP Final 16 in Seoul 26 September. Since Fighters.com’s original post, K-1 has confirmed the Overeem versus Aerts matchup.

Overeem was thought to be nursing an persistently infected hand resulting from a bar brawl in Amsterdam last May that kept him from defending his Strikeforce title from “Vai Cavalo” Fabricio Werdum (12-4-1) in San Jose 15 August. The injury was described by Overeem’s manager, Bas Boon, as nearly costing Overeem his hand.

Overeem hasn’t defended his belt since winning it with a submission due to knees of “Headhunter” Paul Buentello (27-9) at Strikeforce in San Jose in 2007, leaving the impression that he is avoiding fighting in the United States.

Evidently Overeem is aware of his Stateside reputation, but follows the maxim that all publicity is good publicty. When Fighters.com confronted our source, the person close to Overeem said, “Alistair says, ‘Let them talk. At least they’re talking about me and it will make my return to the U.S. even bigger.’”

One big talker has been Fighters.com’s fourth-ranked heavyweight “Grim” Brett Rogers (8-0), who called out Overeem to defend his title after Rogers knocked out tenth-ranked “Pitbull” Andrei Arlovski (14-7) in 22 seconds at Strikeforce in St. Lous 6 June.

When Overeem bailed on his title defense versus Werdum, Rogers’s manager, Mike Reilly, told Fighters.com, “Overeem who? Is that a guy who used to fight and ducks a lot of fights now. Does he still fight? I never took that fight seriously. I never thought it was going to happen.”

And, upon hearing about Overeem’s upcoming fight schedule, Reilly told Fighters.com, “Overeem will be hard to hit. The guy really knows how to duck.”

Overeem’s fight at Glory 11 in October rests speculation that Overeem could defend his title versus Werdum on the same card Rogers and Fighters.com Heavyweight Champion “Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko (29-1) will fight in November.

Fighters.com’s source close to Overeem said that Strikeforce didn’t want to incur the expense of putting two big heavyweight fights on the same fight card; and, Fighters.com’s Glory 11 source confirmed that Strikeforce is cooperating to find Overeem an opponent in Amsterdam.

Though contacted by Fighters.com, neither Overeem, nor Strikeforce decided to comment.