UFC Fight Night: Alistair Overeem vs. Andrei Arlovski Toe to Toe Preview – Complete Breakdown

Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski battle for a shot at gold this May 8, 2016 at the Ahoy Rotterdam in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Single sentence summary:

Phil: There can be only one Jackson-Wink heavyweight.

David: Heavyweight underachiever turned overachiever takes on heavyweight overachiever turned underachiever.

Stats?

Record: HeavyweightAlistair Overeem 40-14-1 NC vs.Andrei Arlovski 25-11-1 NC

Odds: HeavyweightAlistair Overeem -220 vs.Andrei Arlovski +200

History lesson / introduction to the fighters

Phil: You know me. I am not the biggest fan of heavyweight. However, if there’s one thing that I have enjoyed in recent years, it’s Alistair Overeem’s run towards the top of the division. Not only has he won his fights, but he’s won them in smart, interesting and genuinely insightful ways. He nullified Roy Nelson’s right hand with kicks and jump knees(!), he took down Struve rather than striking with him, and he exploited Dos Santos’ offensive deficiencies rather than his defensive ones. All this with one of the worst chins around, in a division where fights are mostly determined by nothing so much as pure durability and the bluntest, ugliest style clashes.

Watching Overeem has engendered the steadily building fascination and tension you might get watching someone speedrun an awful glitchy videogame; one where they can’t get hit once. Heavyweight might be the entertainment equivalent of the dreck from Sega’s nadir (Sonic Boom maybe?) but you can’t help but be invested in watching someone exploit the system in interesting ways. Right?

David: If we’re gonna use video game analogies, I liken heavyweight to fighting games from established properties: ‘those cool looking characters would look better face punching each other’. Like a game of Smash Brothers, strategy is to incidental as spectacle is to deliberate.

Which makes Overeem Pikachu, and Arlovski…the Ice Climbers? I think I’ve lost the capacity for all rational analogies. Anyway, you’re dead on as usual. Overeem is the one heavyweight action hero whose success isn’t lightly sprinkled with chance.

Phil: If Overeem is a resurrection of a lost era of heavyweight hype with a varied mix of tools, Andrei is what happens when tool get pared down to just one. At this point, Arlovski is one of the most distilled MMA fighters I can think of. More than Hendo. More than Big Country. He can lever punch, he can counter, he can backhand(!) with it, but the offensive wrestling is gone, the submissions are gone, the kicks are gone. He is a right hand which moves quickly.

David: I’m glad you …

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