UFC 203 Preview

When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship earlier this year, it was declared that the city of Cleveland’s championship curse had finally been lifted. But MMA fans often refer to Stipe Miocic’s right hook counter knock out of Fabrico Werdum almost a month prior to the Cavs championship win as the real curse lift of Cleveland’s championship drought. In one of the many upsets in this crazy year of MMA, Stipe Miocic stomped into Fabrico Werdum’s home country of Brazil and claimed championship gold in devastating fashion, silencing the home country crowd. Now, Stipe Miocic finds himself in the same situation as Werdum does, defending his championship gold in front of his hometown fans in Cleveland. And in his way is the legendary Dutch kickboxer, Alistair Overeem, who looks to cement his MMA legacy by becoming UFC Champion.

When Alistair Overeem first signed with the UFC back in 2011 it garnered a lot of attention. Overeem(who has had an up and down career in MMA) appeared to be in the prime of his career winning 10 straight fights prior to signing with the UFC, including wins of the DREAM and Strikeforce heavyweight championships. Aside from that, he became the K-1 World Grand Prix Champion in 2010 after he knocked out the legendary Peter Aerts in the finals. Overeem hasn’t competed in kickboxing since the Grand Prix championship win and completely switched his focus to MMA. Early in his MMA career Overeem had a rocky start coming into the UFC. After knocking out Brock Lesnar in his debut fight, he was given a title shot against then champion Junior dos Santos, but was removed from the contest after a failed drug test from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Upon returning to the UFC, he went on a 1-3 run with knockout losses to Ben Rothwell, Travis Browne and Antonio Silva. With many people already labeling Overeem a bust in the UFC, he managed to turn things around when he knocked out fellow Dutchman, Stefan Sturve in December 2014. He proceeded to win 3 more fights including wins over former champion Andrei Arlovski and Junior dos Santos (the man he was originally suppose to face for the UFC Championship). Now, with his confidence riding high, and looking to find a home at Team Jackson-Winkeljohn’s, things could not look much better for Overeem. I don’t expect the hometown crowd to affect Overeem’s mental preparation too much as he has always been an overly confident in his skills. So confident that it has bit him in the ass before and has had him on the receiving end of devastating knockouts. If there is any fighter that could take advantage of that it’s Stipe Miocic.

Stipe Miocic’s rise to UFC Heavyweight championship has been overlooked by almost everyone, as he seemed the most unlikely of champions. Despite being one of the most consistent fighters in a division filled with popular names, Stipe often gets lost in the shuffle despite having wins over the bigger names like Roy Nelson, Mark Hunt, and Andrei Arlovski. Fortunately that hasn’t prevented him from getting a title shot, and when given the opportunity, Stipe Miocic silenced everyone who doubted him and never gave him the respect he earned. Now with UFC gold around his waist, Stipe wants to prove to the world that his knockout win over former champion Fabrico Werdum was no fluke and that he is here to stay. Out of every championship in the UFC, no title has changed hands more than the heavyweight championship. When you have athletes of that size looking to take each other’s heads off, the unpredictability of a fight is a much higher percentage, which is why we have had 19 different champions, and 4 interim champions. Stipe has a very tall task ahead of him not only with fighting Overeem but with fighting in front of his hometown. Although he will have tons of support from the home crowd, the pressure can be hard to overcome on top of having to prepare for the skill set of Alistair Overeem. But Stipe has proven to rise to the occasion before and hometown jitters shouldn’t get in the way of him executing the best game plan to defeat the Dutchman.

In the co-main event Fabrico Werdum (the man who Stipe Miocic defeated to win the Heavyweight title), looks to rebound from his title loss against past foe Travis Browne, who is looking to avenge his 2014 loss against the former champion. Werdum was originally supposed to face Ben Rothwell but Big Ben had to pull out a month prior to the fight due to a knee injury. Browne gladly stepped in not only wanting to avenge a loss to Werdum, but like his opponent, rebound from a devastating loss. Browne is coming off dominating knockout loss at the hands of Cain Velasquez at UFC 200. In their first fight, most thought Browne would’ve had the striking advantage but Werdum completely dominated the fight using his much improved muay thai. Although it’s hard to imagine how Browne is going to defeat a man who dominated him in the first fight, on short notice, a similar situation to this happened at UFC 199 (Bisping knocking out Luke Rockhold). When Michael Bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold, a man who dominated him two years prior to win the UFC middleweight championship on only 2 weeks notice, it showed you why MMA is one of the most unpredictable sports ever. Travis Browne has proven his knock out power and given how unpredictable not only MMA is, but especially the Heavyweight division, you can’t count out Travis from this fight.

Despite two blockbuster heavyweight fights on this card, the fight that will be gaining the most attention is the UFC debut of Phil Brooks, better known to people as former WWE superstar CM Punk. When it was announced at UFC 181 that CM Punk had signed a multi-fight contract with the UFC, the sports world was buzzing. There was and still is a lot of controversy surround this signing, most in particular about Punk’s combat sports background. This isn’t like when the UFC signed Brock Lesnar, who was an NCAA Division 1 champion amateur wrestler, and only 30 years old at the time. CM Punk is nearly 40 years old and prior to signing with the UFC had really only trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as a hobby. MMA fans and fighters alike stated their displeasure about Punk fighting in the UFC, but fast forward almost two years later and he is finally going to fight. Punk has a chance to prove all the naysayers wrong, but at the end of the day I don’t believe he cares what they think.

Punk has always come off as a guy secure about himself, and I feel that this is something he truly wants to do for himself. Punk has always shown a passion for MMA and has had close relationships with many of its fighters. But at the same time Punk isn’t some young man, who’s near his physical peak. He’s a 39 year old, former pro wrestler whose body has been battered from the physicality of his past profession. On top of that, he’s not facing some hand-me down fighter. His opponent is 24 year old Mickey Gall, who’s looking to make a name for himself at the expense of CM Punk, and is coming into this fight as a very intriguing and young prospect. Gall comes from a good training camp (Miller Brothers MMA out of New Jersey), and in his lone UFC fight against Mike Jackson, he showed some power dominating the fight in the first round. With two fights under his belt, he is already more experienced than the 39 year old CM Punk, and is in better physical shape than the worn down pro wrestler. I mean hey, considering how strange this year has been for MMA, I leave the door open for anything. With all due respect to Punk, I give any man who steps into the cage to fight for our entertainment all the respect in the world. He’s taking a huge risk doing this and has nothing to prove to anyone but I feel that this is going to be the first and last fight we see CM Punk in the UFC, win or lose.