Is Stipe Miocic the Man to Right the Ship that is the Heavyweight Division?

This past May, Stipe Miocic silenced 48,000 hostile Brazilians by knocking out their heavyweight champion, Fabricio Werdum in just under three minutes. A short counter right hook, which floored the former champion (see gif below), was the culmination of a lifetime in athletics for the Cleveland native. Yet, despite Stipe’s meteoric rise through the heavyweight division and brutal dethroning of the former champ, I’m willing to wager that the casual fan has no idea the UFC’s heavyweight title is on the line this Saturday night. Why is that?

The allure of heavyweight fighting has long received attention from the casual fan. In the era of Mike Tyson, George Foreman, and Muhammad Ali, seldom would a heavyweight title bout go largely unnoticed. There’s something undeniably intriguing about two 265-pound men facing off in a battle to crown “the baddest dude on the planet”. Yet, in its 20 years of existence the UFC’s heavyweight division has failed to gain significant traction. Among the many variables that make UFC superstars and subsequently put weight divisions on the map, octagon success may be most consequential. Take the bombast and hubris of Conor McGregor and compare it to the laconicism of George St. Pierre. What do these two men have in common? Almost nothing, aside of course, from their divisional dominance. Inherent to UFC superstardom (excluding Brock Lesnar who upon his debut carried the heed of WWE fans) is a certain degree of divisional supremacy. Jon Jones, Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, George St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva – MMA’s biggest stars – all enjoyed at least a seven fight-winning streak within their respective weight classes.

Unfortunately for the heavyweight division, its history has been turbulent at best. No champion has ever defended the belt more than twice. While it’s been fun to play witness to such chaos, frequent changes of hand stifle the emergence divisional superstars. Could current champion, Stipe Miocic reverse the hex and bring balance to a division long mired by volatility?

If Miocic is the man to the right the ship that is the heavyweight division he has a tough road ahead. First, in a long list of killers is Alistair Overeem. Waiting in the weeds is the greatest heavyweight of all time in, Cain Velasquez. Fortunately for Stipe, he’s shown a natural prowess for fighting few have. His athleticism, size, hand speed, wresting ability, and knockout power has allowed Stipe to take over the heavyweight division with comparably little MMA experience. He might also have the largest head in UFC history, which is to say the man can take a punch in the face, an invaluable asset when competing amongst the sport’s hardest hitters. In addition to his natural fight IQ and cranial endowment, Stipe has extraordinary octagon composure. Such equanimity allows him to conserve energy and expertly impose a game plan. This will be of grave importance this Saturday as he defends the belt in front of his home crowd in Cleveland, Ohio. Regardless of what happens, it should prove an entertaining ride indeed.

REEM. THE FINAL FORM

The hardest part writing on Alistair “The Reem” Overeem is choosing which awesome, strange, hilarious photos to use. What can I say about The Reem… He’s a massive legend. Literally, he’s massive, and a legend. Fighting out of the Netherlands, standing 6’4″, and tipping the scales above 250lbs with abs, The Reem is certainly a terrifying man to fight. However, outside the cage, The Reem is a gentle soul. He loves animals, partying, women, and his daughter.

And he didn’t always look like a comic book character, here’s the inside scoop… In 2013, I had the good fortune to find myself chatting with a beautiful Dutch woman in a shady Cambodian bar. We struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I was headed to Thailand to do some MMA and Muay Thai. Little did I know I was talking to Orinta Van Der Zee, one of the greatest female kickboxers and Muay Thai fighters of all time.

I didn’t know enough about the sport to realize, but I was talking to a legend. After her not-so-subtle “I’m kind of a big deal” speech, she told stories. Like The Reem, Orinta is from Holland. She told me she grew up in the same gyms as The Pre-Reem, and affectionately referred to him as “Alistair”, an old friend. She said, “I remember when Alistair was your size, like a normal person.” The story she told of Alistair’s career was one of chemically supplemented evolution. The juice.

Alistair got bigger and bigger until he was having to cut weight to make the 265lb limit of the heavyweight division. During this time period when he was his biggest, many fans referred to him as “Ubereem”. He looked like a comic book character, fearsome to behold. Ubereem was known as an explosive kickboxing specialist that dwarfed almost every man he fought. Famously, he ended Brock Lesnar’s career with a thunderous kick to the gut before failing a drug test for an inhuman amount of testosterone in his blood (T/E ratio). Hardcore fight fans were shocked….shocked that the doctors found some urine in his steroids.

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“My name is Ubereem, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

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Off steroids and supposedly clean, the Ubereem has now taken his final form: being simply The Reem. The Reem has seen a career resurgence as of late. He has become craftier with age, more tactical, less recklessly aggressive (absence of roid-rage, some speculate).

On Saturday, he will beat Stipe Miocic for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, making him the ipso-facto Baddest Man On The Planet. In anticipation of that, here’s an obligatory gallery of The Reem covered in women during his rise to fame in the mid 2000s in Japan:

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Ladies and gentleman, our new champion!

Is there any more likable guy?

UFC 203 Betting Lines:

http://www.oddsshark.com/ufc/odds