Stipe Miocic got the chance of a lifetime Saturday night as he defended his UFC heavyweight title in his hometown of Cleveland in the main event of UFC 203 against Alistair Overeem.
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On what he’s hoping for: “I am, at the same time, hoping for the upset, because we all love upsets”. Unless you won convincingly, you shouldn’t be confident in using the scorecards, and Eye didn’t do almost enough in the third round to get the win. He started to deliver ground and pound and at heavyweight, nobody can take much of those.
“I’m going to go out there and do my job”.
Overeem has potential to knock out nearly any opponent, but the chances to land a massive strike could be farther and fewer between than usual against Miocic, who is a good striker in his own right.
Overeem earned his title shot with four straight wins going back to 2014, including two TKO finishes against former heavyweight champs in Junior dos Santor and Andrei Arlovkski. UFC 203’s “Prelims” undercard will begin at 7 p.m. online via “Fight Pass” before transitioning to the FOX Sports 1 television station at 8 p.m. ET. Want to watch UFC 203 at a local bar or movie theatre?
“It was nice to see a very proud state finally accomplishment championships”, he said, adding a threat.
The post-fight press conferences usually pretty interesting because White will talk about where the company is headed and what is in store for the fighters on the card who won (or lost).
Remember Fabricio Werdum from earlier? Faber is a charismatic guy and has been a fan favorite for a long time, but at this point in his career he’s acting as the gatekeeper for the rest of the division.
Afterwards, Gall – who took his professional record to 3-0 – called out Sage Northcutt, while CM Punk insisted there were no regrets about his decision to take on such a sizeable challenge. “He’s good on the ground too and like he said he thinks he’s a better overall fighter than me – but we’ll see what happens on Saturday”. What’s that all about?
The UFC debut of Phil Brooks, known in the wrestling community as CM Punk, was one that many had been looking forward to, after multiple setbacks pushed it back to 21 months from the time he had signed with the company. MMA is the real thing.
And Overeem, the 36-year old native of Holland, plans on making Miocic pay for enjoying life outside of The Octagon.
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But moving forward, Miocic prefers to fight away from the area. “And he’s all about meeting his fans and everything but when you show up at 10 at night, we might need to say he’s not here”, said Mecklemburg.
