UFC on FOX 17's Alistair Overeem: Junior Dos Santos did not want this fight

Alistair Overeem

More than three years after they were originally scheduled to meet, Alistair Overeem and Junior dos Santos will finally fight at this weekend’s UFC on FOX 18 event. Overeem believes there’s a clear reason why it took so long to put the fight together.

“What other people do is their business,” Overeem told MMAjunkie. “But the fact is Junior did not want this fight. I had to push him a little it to make this fight happen – a fight which, by the way, the whole world wants to see. The UFC wants it. The fans out there all want it. I’m getting messages from every corner of the globe that people want to see this fight. So I had to push Junior a little bit.”

The two were originally scheduled to face each other at UFC 146 in May 2012, but Overeem tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone and was pulled from the fight. It was scheduled again for UFC 160 in May 2013, but injury forced Overeem to withdraw. Since then, the two have been consistently linked together for a possible meeting, and it will finally go down at Saturday’s event, which takes place at Amway Center in Orlando, Fla.

Overeem (39-14 MMA, 4-3 UFC) believes Dos Santos (17-3 MMA, 11-2 UFC) is to blame for the delay.

“It’s very simple,” Overeem said. “In interviews, I never heard my name mentioned. I heard Andrei Arlovski. I heard Stipe (Miocic). But I did not hear Alistair Overeem. That’s weird because Alistair Overeem, this fight with JDS, is a fight that everyone wants to see, UFC included, so why would you not want to perform?”

Whatever the reason, the two are finally together now, and the bout serves as the FOX-broadcast co-main event following preliminary bouts on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

Despite his frustrations with the delay, Overeem said he’s not taking his opponent’s skills lightly.

“Let’s not be mistaken about Junior,” Overeem said. “He has shown tremendous heart. He’s a tremendous athlete. He’s a dangerous fighter, too. So he definitely has his moments.

“He had a couple of rough fights, but he’s definitely not somebody to be underestimated.”

As two of the premier strikers in the heavyweight division, the bout looks like it should be a classic slugfest. Overeem, though, said he thinks Dos Santos will be looking to wrestle a bit. For that reason, Overeem said he’s been preparing for every possible scenario in a fight he believes could very easily get the winner involved in the next round of title discussions.

Regardless of how it plays out, Overeem believes the outcome will be the same.

“I definitely believe that the winner of this fight has a claim to the UFC title,” Overeem said. “I’ve had a 1,000 different scenarios in my head of how it would go down, and they all differed. One thing was the same: I’m going to leave the octagon with my hand raised.”

For more on UFC on FOX 17, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.