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Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament Pairings Set; Overeem Included

Posted on January 4, 2011 by MMAWeekly.com Staff

Alistair Overeem

Alistair Overeem

Strikeforce has yet to officially announce its upcoming eight-man heavyweight tournament, but MMAWeekly.com sources confirmed the expected quarterfinal match-ups first reported by MMAJunkie.com.

Expected Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix quarterfinal match-ups:

-Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva
-Andrei Arlovski vs. Sergei Kharitonov
-Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum
-Josh Barnett vs. Brett Rogers

The first two match-ups pitting Fedor vs. Silva and Arlovski vs. Kharitonov will take place on Feb. 12 at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. The other two pairings – Overeem vs. Werdum and Barnett vs. Rogers – do not yet have a definitive date or location despite Strikeforce’s plans to hold an event March 5 in Columbus, Ohio.

The tournament comes on the heels of M-1 Global’s announcement on its Russian website on Tuesday that they have come to terms with Strikeforce on a new contract for Fedor in a partnership that includes M-1 Global, Strikeforce, and Showtime, the promotion’s television partner.

  • The_Power

    So will Overeem be defending his title against Werdum??? If that is the case i would assume that the purpose of the tournament will be for a heavyweight to get a title shot for Overeem’s belt. But i’m not familiar with tournaments so i don’t know.

  • http://www.myspace.com/hostileomish AIMLET

    Yeah, I am def surprised to see Alistair involved in the tournament. But hey, we should just be happy to see him fighting on another Strikeforce card against a legitimate top ten opponent. If this fight comes to fruition in Columbus that would be great.

  • mirko crocop

    Yeah that is a bit confusing, Strikeforce will clear that up I’m sure. I doubt his fight will be for the title…that doesn’t make sense. This must be a tournament independent from the SF HW belt. Anyway, I am extremely excited to see this being organized. Some great fights for us to watch coming soon.

  • b-soc

    Strikeforce has already messed up their heavyweight division by making Ovareem’s only defence of the title in three years Brett Rogers coming off a brutal KO loss to Fedor who should have fought Ovareem. As far as I’m concerned, anything looks good compared to that. They might as well put Warpath in there.