{"id":350714,"date":"2020-05-18T09:46:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T16:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=350714"},"modified":"2020-05-18T09:47:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T16:47:39","slug":"alistair-overeem-was-fired-up-about-fighting-in-an-empty-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/alistair-overeem-was-fired-up-about-fighting-in-an-empty-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"Alistair Overeem was &#8220;fired up&#8221; about fighting in an empty arena"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem says he enjoyed the experience of fighting in an emptied-out arena in Jacksonville, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Overeem defeated Walt Harris via second-round TKO in the main event of Saturday&#8217;s UFC on ESPN 8 card. Like most sporting events going on during the coronavirus pandemic, this one went down without any fans in attendance \u2014 just the fighters, their corners, and the required UFC staff.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, this creates a very difficult experience for fighters, but Overeem, who has fought close to 100 times in MMA and kickboxing, and has captured titles in Dream, Strikeforce, and K-1, found the experience enjoyable. In fact, it reminded him a bit of the early days of his MMA career, when his fights went down in smaller venues with far fewer fans in attendance.<\/p>\n<p id=\"prdhxJ\">\u201cStrange, I was fired up about it,\u201d Overeem told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2020\/5\/18\/21261407\/alistair-overeem-enjoyed-fighting-in-an-empty-arena-i-was-fired-up-about-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MMA Fighting<\/a> at the UFC on ESPN 8 post-fight press conference. \u201cThis was fight No. 92. It kind of reminded me of my earlier fights. I have to go all the way back to \u201897 when there were like 200 or fewer people in the audience. This was a little bit different though. I don\u2019t know, it motivated me.<\/p>\n<p id=\"sHcm0U\">\u201c[It was] during a pandemic, first time, so to me it was very interesting tonight,&#8221; Overeem added. &#8220;No audience. Still you got tensions, still you\u2019ve got the nerves going through you fight day. I don\u2019t know but it was different. It was cool. I liked it. I enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With his win over Walt Harris, Alistair Overeem rebounded from a tough stoppage loss to Jairzinho Rozenstruik back in December. Having rebounded from this loss, he\u2019s now\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/alistair-overeem-targets-one-last-run-at-ufc-title-in-the-final-phase-of-his-career\/\">targeting one final UFC heavyweight title run<\/a>\u00a0before he retires.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re still hunting for the title,\u201d Overeem said post-fight. \u201cI would say also I\u2019m in the last phase of my career. So those two things are a little bit on my mind, finish the career and then one more run at the title.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What do you think is next for Alistair Overeem after his big win in Jacksonville?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem says he enjoyed the experience of fighting in an emptied-out arena in Jacksonville, Florida. Overeem defeated Walt Harris via second-round TKO in the main event of Saturday&#8217;s UFC on ESPN 8 card. Like most sporting events going on during the coronavirus pandemic, this one went down without any fans in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":276813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10192,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alistair Overeem was &quot;fired up&quot; about fighting in an empty arena | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"UFC heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem says he enjoyed the experience of fighting in an emptied-out arena in Jacksonville, Florida.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/alistair-overeem-was-fired-up-about-fighting-in-an-empty-arena\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alistair Overeem was &quot;fired up&quot; 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