Alistair Overeem has set his sights on winning the UFC heavyweight title before finally hanging up his gloves in roughly two years time.
That’s the word from the 39-year-old ahead of his headlining fight with Jairzinho Rosenstruik at UFC On ESPN 7 on Saturday night, where ‘The Reem’ will be looking for his third win in a row.
“You have to be realistic,” said at the UFC on ESPN 7 open workouts yesterday. “For me, two years (before I retire). Maybe a little bit more, maybe less. Probably a little bit more. But then it’s going to be enough. But I do believe you have to stop on time. It is a dangerous profession. We’ve been fighting for 23 years. Twenty-three years ago was the first fight, so with that also we need to be clever.”
Some would say Overeem is already well into the danger zone, having been T(KO)’d no less than 13 times in his MMA career to date, not to mention a further 4 times in his kickboxing run, but thhe fact that he’s still winning substantially more than he’s losing appears to have the Dutchman believing he can still make another run for the title.
“My career would not be complete without UFC gold,” Overeem said. “I just need to win my fights. If you win Saturday, I’ll probably have to do one more win then we can make noise for a title shot.”
Overeem’s trophy cabinet is already overflowing, having won titles with the Strikeforce, DREAM and K-1 organizations over the years, but if he wants to put himself in a position to try and fighht for another one then he first has to overcome a potentially tricky bout with an undefeated, yet fairly unheralded fighter by his standards in Rosenstruik.
“The goal is the same. We’re going to fight, we’re going to win, we’re going to fatigue (him), we’re going to take him to deep waters, we’re going to take him out and finish him.
“This is just the one they presented. I’ve been training for a long time. I was actually hoping to fight sooner, like in September. It didn’t materialize, so I was just very happy that somebody stepped up. Of course it’s a huge opportunity for Jairzinho, but it’s going to be a good fight.”
