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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Saturday night in Las Vegas, Alistair Overeem faces Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva in his first fight since December of 2011. A win will put him into a title fight against new Champion Cain Velasquez, and though he's not taking the challenge lightly, it's a fight he believes he'll win quickly.
"Everybody is dangerous at this level," Overeem said in an interview with MMAJunkie.com. "You should not underestimate anybody. That being said, I just need to destroy Antonio in the first or second round and then move on to the next guy."
If he does just that, he'll meet Velasquez later this year. That makes for a different challenge than the man he was supposed to face initially last year, Junior dos Santos, but Overeem believes he'll ultimately fight both men inside the Octagon.
"Cain proves to be an entirely different challenge than dos Santos," Overeem said. "That being said, for me, it's fine. I already hold three belts. I'm a three-time world champion. I have the attitude of fighting anybody, anywhere. For me it doesn't matter if it's dos Santos or Cain."
"I see myself fighting dos Santos at a later stage. I would have preferred to fight him for the title, but his decisions have made this reality."
To get there, he must first defeat Silva, and he says it's now up to him to start 2013 on a much better foot than he did with 2012.
"It's 2013, and the world did not come to an end," Overeem said. "This fight is a comeback for me, and it's a new beginning. I appreciate the UFC for being very supportive during my time off."
"What happens next isn't up to me. I just have to get the win."
Penick's Analysis: There's no reason to believe Silva will pull off an upset in this fight. There just isn't. He's been destroyed in the striking department by worse strikers than Overeem, he's not going to have some type of massive size advantage, and he's simply not a better fighter than Overeem. It's not an impossible task, to be sure, as Overeem's been stopped in the past, but it's been a really long time since he's had his chin tested, and Silva's not likely to be the one to do it. It's far more likely we'll see Overeem against Cain Velasquez sometime this year.
[Alistair Overeem art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
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