Alistair Overeem used knees almost exclusively in the opening round of his main event fight with Aleksei Oleynik tonight at UFC Fight Night 149, and that paid off deep into the first round of the fight to secure a TKO victory.
Round One:
The main event of the evening is underway in St. Petersburg.
Overeem goes into the clinch straight away and Oleynik pulls guard. He’d like to use the Ezekiel choke, but Overeem’s wise to that.
Oleynik gets to his knees and then gets back up as Overeem throws a kick. Big knee upstairs from Overeem. Looping punches from Oleynik miss. Knee to the head from Overeem again.
Oleynik now lands an overhand punch that catches Overeem clean. He seems a little hurt and backs up against the cage as Oleynik throws big punches.
Overeem survives though and seems ok. They go back to it and Overeem lands another punishing knee. Again Oleynik wading in with punches against the cage though, targetting the body repeatedly.
Yet again Overeem lands the knee and again Oleynik catches Overeem with a looping punch and then goes for a follow-up barrage.
into the clinch again and two huge knees upstairs from Overeem. Body work from Oleynik. Another clinch. More knees. More body punches from Oleynik.
overhand right from Oleynik and then more punches against the cage. Now Overeem reverses to the clinch, but Oleynik gets back in pole position again. Overeem walks him away from the clinch and then two big knees to the side of his head at the temple clearly hurt him and Oleynik sinks to the mat hurt.
Oleynik just covering up here as Overeem hammers away at him with punches and the referee steps in when it becomes clear ‘The Boa Constrictor’ just doesn’t have anything left and is purely in defensive mode.
The finish comes at 4.45mins of the first round and brings Overeem his second win in a row.
