After smashing his way back into the win column, Alistair Overeem wants the opportunity to avenge his most recent loss.
Overeem (46-18 MMA, 11-7 UFC) suffered a “Hail Mary” knockout loss to Jairzinho Rozenstruik at UFC on ESPN 7 last December in a fight that he appeared to be winning before he was dramatically dropped with seconds remaining in the bout.
However, Overeem rebounded with a second-round finish of Walt Harris at UFC on ESPN 8 on May 16 and would now like another crack at “Bigi Boy”.
Overeem thinks the stoppage came too early and vows to leave no doubt in a potential rematch.
“I’m not dissatisfied about the Rozenstruik performance. … We schooled the guy,” Overeem told Sirius XM’s Fight Nation. “We were up all five rounds, it was just like one, or actually it was two punches that he connected. In my opinion a wrong stoppage, the ref should have never jumped in and when he jumped in it was zero seconds left. I actually had thought that it was the end of the fight because I remember the click, click, last 10 seconds and then I got dropped, straight back to my feet and it was over.
“I thought I actually won that fight and then it was like hey (expletive), they stopped it, TKO? And then you have Rozenstruik talking about it. He KO’d me, he KO’d me. That guy got lucky and I would love to run it back with him because (if) I fight him again, I’m gonna finish him. One hundred percent.”
Rozenstruik (10-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) suffered his first career blemish at UFC 249 when he was knocked out in 20 seconds by Francis Ngannou in Jacksonville. His win over Overeem was MMA Junkie’s comeback of the year.
