Training Camps Are Still On!

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Even with all upcoming events officially postponed, UFC headliner Alistair Overeem confirms he’s in camp for an upcoming fight in the US.

Even though the fight for UFC 249 is over, future fights are still there … at least that’s what the big bossman is telling his fighters.

Alistair Overeem has been sharing his adventures over the past couple of days, and they include a series of flights to get him from Amsterdam to Atlanta to Denver and a visit with his Stateside chiropractor Evan Katz. The key statement from “The Demolition Man” in all of this? “Yes – we’re in camp!”

Overeem was originally set to face Walt Harris on April 11th in Oregon before the Coronavirus ruined everything fun in this world. But now there are rumors from Alistair’s home country that the main event will be moved to an unnamed and ‘Location TBD’ spot on May 16th. But Overeem came to America for this, so we don’t think it’s Fight Island. The date is one week after UFC 250 was supposed to go down – will this event on the 16th of May be the UFC’s attempted return to Tachi Palace?

You’d think UFC president Dana White would have learned from his last attempt to run things on Native lands in California that state officials just aren’t gonna let that fly during a pandemic. If he was serious about making this go off, it would be a better idea to move the show to one of those states that still has skeptical dumbasses in charge. But this wussy MMA writer has a theory that White’s attempts to hold events has less to do with actually holding the events and more to do with proving they were ready to fulfill contractual obligations in order to get paid by ESPN.

When you view it like that, White’s refrain that he was forced to ‘stand down’ by the corporate overlords at Disney starts to make a lot more sense. If the same thing happens on May 16th, the UFC has a nice paper trail to prove they were literally prevented by ESPN from fulfilling their side of a $750 million a year deal to hold 2020’s events.

As for Alistair Overeem and Walt Harris? You hope they stay safe in training and have some kind of assurances that they’ll still get paid their show money for jumping through all these dangerous hoops. Honestly, you’d hope they already got paid something for the effort they put in to be ready for April 11th. As with so many other things regarding the UFC’s Coronavirus plans, you just have to take Dana White at his word that he’s taking care of everything and everyone properly.