Alistair Overeem Will Return To The UFC, But Dana White Won't Deal With Him

It's no secret that Alistair Overeem's removal from UFC 146 was a huge headache for Dana White. Overeem failed a random test and received what amounted to a nine-month suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. He is eligible to re-apply in late December and could fight for the UFC as early as the start of 2013. Dana White made it clear he's still not exactly enamored with Overeem after UFC 146 though (transcription via MMA Weekly):

"He lied to me. He sat in front of us, he lied to us, I’m not interested. I don’t have to deal with people I don’t want to deal with and I don’t want to deal with him, Lorenzo will."

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Oh big bad Dana. Good Lorenzo deals better with people anyhow.

Kinda weird that Overeem will still get a title shot when he returns or that's what I read/heard.

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Posted by FastKnockout

"He lied to me. He sat in front of us, he lied to us, I’m not interested. I don’t have to deal with people I don’t want to deal with and I don’t want to deal with him, Lorenzo will."

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I believe you just lied to a bunch of fighters, Faber, Ivan, Mcdonald, Barao.

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Posted by Twenty20Dollars

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Posted by FastKnockout

"He lied to me. He sat in front of us, he lied to us, I’m not interested. I don’t have to deal with people I don’t want to deal with and I don’t want to deal with him, Lorenzo will."

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I believe you just lied to a bunch of fighters, Faber, Ivan, Mcdonald, Barao.

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Right on!

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Posted by Wallass

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Posted by Twenty20Dollars

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Posted by FastKnockout

"He lied to me. He sat in front of us, he lied to us, I’m not interested. I don’t have to deal with people I don’t want to deal with and I don’t want to deal with him, Lorenzo will."

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I believe you just lied to a bunch of fighters, Faber, Ivan, Mcdonald, Barao.

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Right on!

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True story, and I understand the frustration with Dana, but he did that in an effort to maintain an element of surprise for the UFC fans. I'm not mad at Allistar for pissing hot, but it's not a parallel at all. I get injury recovery and as a matter of fact I'm in favor of using various hormone elevators to help athletes in recovery, but Overeem has been in violation before, avoided tests before, gained 70 lbs of mass in a matter of a couple of years, and been a user suspect for a long time. It seems to me that regulation is the issue, and that either Overeem's Dr. needs to have his license revoked, or Allistar needs to fess up to knowing what was in his cocktail. Passed all that, I just want to see the guy get back in the cage and demolish fighters like he does best.

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Posted by Wallass

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Posted by Twenty20Dollars

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Posted by FastKnockout

"He lied to me. He sat in front of us, he lied to us, I’m not interested. I don’t have to deal with people I don’t want to deal with and I don’t want to deal with him, Lorenzo will."

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I believe you just lied to a bunch of fighters, Faber, Ivan, Mcdonald, Barao.

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Right on!

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call me slow but I dont quite get this

Dana could have waited till he had the opponent for Faber and then revealed instead of telling them it will be someone else.

The fans already knew the possible replacement.

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Posted by Twenty20Dollars

Dana could have waited till he had the opponent for Faber and then revealed instead of telling them it will be someone else.

The fans already knew the possible replacement.

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To add to your point, Barao was on Tweeter the whole day telling everyone to tune into TUF for a "surprise announcement."

doesnt Lorenzo right the checks anyways, so what does it matter

Completely hypocritical. I hope someone has the balls to call out Dana about the canning of Marquardt vs Overeem's situation.

JDS will deal with Overeem

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Posted by warglory

Completely hypocritical. I hope someone has the balls to call out Dana about the canning of Marquardt vs Overeem's situation.

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different circumstances. Marquardt fucked the card up the day before the event. Overeem pissed hot like 2 months ago giving them enough time to set up fights and let the fighters get a decent camp in

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Posted by shaneTpain

JDS will deal with Overeem

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How does Mrs. Dana White deal with Uncle Dana

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Posted by Bubbles

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Posted by warglory

Completely hypocritical. I hope someone has the balls to call out Dana about the canning of Marquardt vs Overeem's situation.

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different circumstances. Marquardt fucked the card up the day before the event. Overeem pissed hot like 2 months ago giving them enough time to set up fights and let the fighters get a decent camp in

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I don't think that's true. Zuffa knew about the situation ahead of time, because Marquardt was given time before the fight to drop his levels, and apparently had reached appropriate levels the day of the fight, but by then, the fight had been changed. Marquardt never had a real suspension though. And unlike Overeem, Marquardt did have an actual exemption, but he didn't notify Zuffa ahead of time, but it was still a legit exemption to use TRT.

Overeem never had a good excuse for why he had extremely high levels of testosterone, and the only reason why it was caught so early, was because it was a test done as a follow up to his initial UFC bout with Lesnar.

In actuality, Overeem's case is far worse than Marquardt's, not only for the severity of the penalty and the lack of acccountability, but also because it threw the entire title picture for a loop in the hw division. They are clearly playing favorites here.

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Posted by warglory

I don't think that's true. Zuffa knew about the situation ahead of time, because Marquardt was given time before the fight to drop his levels, and apparently had reached appropriate levels the day of the fight, but by then, the fight had been changed. Marquardt never had a real suspension though. And unlike Overeem, Marquardt did have an actual exemption, but he didn't notify Zuffa ahead of time, but it was still a legit exemption to use TRT.

Overeem never had a good excuse for why he had extremely high levels of testosterone, and the only reason why it was caught so early, was because it was a test done as a follow up to his initial UFC bout with Lesnar.

In actuality, Overeem's case is far worse than Marquardt's, not only for the severity of the penalty and the lack of acccountability, but also because it threw the entire title picture for a loop in the hw division. They are clearly playing favorites here.

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They also gave Marquardt the time to get his levels down while they just gave Overeem a big "fuck you" and kicked him off the card.

I dont think that this test was a followup to his fight with Lesnar, but rather a pre-prefight test for 146 since I believe 8 main card fighters got tested

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Posted by Bubbles
I dont think that this test was a followup to his fight with Lesnar, but rather a pre-prefight test for 146 since I believe 8 main card fighters got tested

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It was kind of a strange situation with a lot of grey area but I think that the test was part of the testing that he agreed to when he got his conditional license to fight Lesnar because at the time when AO failed the test, he was not licensed by the commission. This matters because if he was not licensed, they really had no grounds to test him because this was before he even applied for a license if I remember correctly. It's been awhile so look it up but I believe Overeem's conditional license to fight Lesnar came with a stipulation that he had to complete atleast one, if not two tests post fight within so many months and the test he failed fell in that time frame. I just remember when the story broke, I kept wondering how they could justifiably punish him if he was not licensed, then I remembered the conditional license.

Then again there may be something with the "out of competition" testing that gives them authority to test non licensed athletes but I'm not sure on that but I doubt it.

You guys make good points. I definitely think the Marquardt comparison is a better argument overall than the, "You lied too!" argument, but I can see the reason for the dissension about which situation was better/worse. The reality is the bigger draws get shown favoritism, and right now the UFC absolutely needs Overeem. They need Overeem now way more than they needed Fedor back in the day. The guy is definitively the best heavyweight striker in the world, has gone 11-0-1 in his last 12, and has developed a huge following of mainstream fans over the past year. You can't question his skill set so of course they play favorites. Is it ethically right? No, but is it going to change? Of course it's not, and at the end of the day when he fights JDS, Cain, Mir, or Carwin I'll be tuning in and chances are so will most mma fans. I don't like the fact that a guy who is so suspect when it comes to PED's has a E:T ratio that is out of this world, but I still want to see him fight. Now I do want to take a second to focus back on the initial frustration with Dana because I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that I am such a UFC loyalists that I think they can do no wrong. Dana is a mastermind, he's absolutely brilliant when it comes to promoting, and he's done amazing things with the backing of a great deal of financing. Those characteristics are great and shouldn't be ignored, but they also don't give him a license to act like a child and that's what he's done in this situation. If you're not going to deal with the guy that's fine don't deal with him, but don't announce it to the world. The twitter regulation, the sponsorship regulation, all of the movement in the past year to become a more mainstream business focused sports organization is useless if the figurehead of your company allows personal frustration with his athletes to become a focal point of his organization. I hope Overeem comes back, pisses clean, and fights well. That's what all of us want to see, we just want him to do it fairly. I also hope Dana gets a better publicist and some more seasoned advisers.

I wanna see someone KO him. I really though Lesnar would take him i was so disappointed

http://mmajunkie.com/news/28906/white-admits-to-lying-to-ufc-148s-faber-and-menjivar-mcdonald-and-pickett.mma