Strikeforce's Alistair Overeem Claims Fedor Emelianenko Is Ducking Him

Alistair Overeem was at it once again yesterday during the “Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery” conference call. Instead of promoting his May 15th fight with Brett Rogers, the heavyweight champ spent a good portion of the call’s opening minutes reiterating his belief that Fedor Emelianenko and Co. are still trying to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge him.

“Of course I want to fight Fedor. I’ve been wanting to fight him for a long time,” Overeem emphatically stated. “I know he’s just a fighter and doesn’t really choose his fights. Whether it’s his management or not, they don’t want a fight with me. They see me as a threat. They know what I’m capable of. I’m the champ here.”

Those are some pretty bold accusations for Overeem to make, especially when you take into account Emelianenko holds a dominant 31-1 professional record and has been perfect through his last 27 scraps. However, he made them, once again, and he isn’t about to back down.

“If you have two parties and one of them is willing to fight and the other isn’t than what are you going to do?” asked the Dutchman. “They see me as a threat. One of M-1 Global’s managers knows how I train and has had an eye on me throughout my career.

“Any potential threat, they’re going to stay away from that.”

Much has been made of Overeem’s immediate exit from the U.S. after capturing the Strikeforce heavyweight title back in November 2007. Not only has he not been back to defend his crown, he turned into The Incredible Hulk during the process which has many, ahem Team Fedor, questioning the legitimacy behind achieving that kind of natural growth in such a short period of time.

“People can say what they want. People can say what they think,” Overeem stated of the growing suspicion he’s been juicing. “I’m going to have to pee. Brett’s going to have to pee. We all have to pee. There’s going to be a positive or a negative, and I know it will be negative.”

Strikeforce announced yesterday that Emelianenko would face Fabricio Werdum on June 26th. It’s believed that if both he and Overeem are able to walk away victorious and unscathed, they would then meet in a blockbuster heavyweight matchup on Strikeforce’s first pay-per-view broadcast rumored for late this year.

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