At 40-years-old it seems that Alistair Overeem is finally on the verge of retirement after admitting that he is planning to hang up his gloves after a couple more fights.
“I’m still improving: even at 40 I think you can clearly see that in my fights,” Overeem wrote on Twitter. “I’m still on a learning curve. But I have to be realistic. I’m going to have a couple more fights, then I’m going to hang up the gloves. If I win the belt, then the mission is completed #onefinalrun.”
Overeem’s statement comes despite actually being on a good run of form, having won his last two fights against Walt Harris and Augusto Sakai via TKO.
In fact, ‘The Reem’ has actually won four of his last five bouts, with the other victories coming against Sergei Pavlovich and Alexey Oleinik, while his sole loss during that period was by KO just four seconds before the final bell against Jairzinho Rozenstruik a year ago.
That being said, Overeem has been rocked several times even during his wins, and with his MMA career now spanning some 65 fights and including no less than 14 losses due to strikes – a number of which saw him KO’d – retiring soon would certainly seem like a very good idea for his long-term health.
Still, Overeem clearly thinks he can still achieve his dream of lifting the UFC heavyweight title before he calls it quits, and as the No.5 ranked contender it’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility that he could put himself in the position to compete for the belt if he can keep on the winning track, starting with a fight against Alexander Volkov in February of next year.
