Overeem has been competing at an elite level for more than a decade. He’s fought a who’s who of competition at both heavyweight and light heavyweight, from 205-pound legends Chuck Liddell and Shogun Rua to former heavyweight champions Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos. The Dutchman even won the K-1 Grand Prix in 2010, making him the best heavyweight kickboxer on the planet, while simultaneously owning the Strikeforce heavyweight championship. He defeated future UFC heavyweight king Fabricio Werdum six months later.

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Despite all those accomplishments, Overeem has repeatedly come up short in the UFC since signing with the promotion in 2011, at least until now.

A move to the tutelage of the gurus at Jackson-Wink MMA in Albuquerque, N.M. and a shift in the focus of his approach in the cage has led to four straight wins, three of them by devastating knockout. At long last, Overeem is on the cusp of holding the UFC belt that has eluded him for five years.

How has Overeem managed to turn things around, and how does he match up with reigning heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, who brutally knocked out Werdum to win his belt in May?

The basic difference between the new-look Overeem and his past self, even the version who won the K-1 title, is an increased emphasis on sticking and moving at long distance rather than aggressively stalking his opponents.

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Even at 36, Overeem is a prodigious athlete with great speed, tremendous athleticism, and shocking power, not to mention a command of footwork and the finer points of technique born of decades of experience as a striker. This new approach minimizes the risk to his fragile chin, which makes him especially vulnerable to knockout shots, and emphasizes his physical gifts and depth of skill.

In practical terms, this means that Overeem circles patiently through the cage, tossing out vicious kicks and then picking his spots to dart in with a hard punching combination before retreating back to a distance where his opponent can’t reach him. This protects Overeem’s chin by preventing him from taking many shots in the pocket: He simply doesn’t spend a lot of time at ranges where he can be hit.

When he was 20 pounds heavier and had more in common physically with a comic book writer’s fever dream than most of his fellow fighters — Overeem dwarfed even the monstrous Lesnar — his game was all about forward pressure and aggression. He stepped into range with brutal punching combinations and then walked into the clinch, where his combination of exceptional strength and technical skill made him one of the most dangerous fighters in the sport.

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His knee strikes were the stuff of legend, as this terrifying 2009 knockout of kickboxer Ewerton Teixeira demonstrates:

Overeem was a bully, and this stalking aggression was how he made himself feel like he was in control of the fight.

Contrast that with his current approach:

In their December 2015 fight, Junior dos Santos is attempting to pressure Overeem toward the fence, where the Brazilian can unload punching combinations in the pocket. Overeem inches backward, walking a tightrope of distance by matching dos Santos’s forward movement without letting himself be drawn into punching distance or pushed too close to the cage. When the moment is right, the Dutchman plants his feet and launches a hard overhand left that catches dos Santos on the chin.

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What happens next is just as important as the punch itself: Overeem bends his knees and rolls under a potential counter right hand from dos Santos while stepping to his left, which helps him avoid the left hook the Brazilian has thrown at the same time as Overeem’s overhand. At the end of the sequence, Overeem is safely in the middle of the cage, which forces dos Santos back to square one with his attempt to pressure.

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When he’s free to move at range, Overeem launches a variety of punishing kicks, like these two:

In the first case, dos Santos has successfully pressed Overeem back toward the fence, but the Dutchman doesn’t stop moving; instead, he steps to the inside of dos Santos’s lead foot, which creates an angle for him to plant his feet and drive home a body kick. He then covers up to block dos Santos’s counter right hand and circles back out to safety.

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In the second instance, Overeem has all the space he needs in the middle of the cage, and he takes advantage by slamming home a vicious left kick. Immediately after throwing, he steps back and angles off to create space and avoid a potential counter.

These kinds of kicks are the bread and butter of Overeem’s new game. When he gets going, Overeem can be absolutely devastating:

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Overeem has pushed the durable but limited and immobile Roy Nelson back toward the fence. He then steps in with a brutal low kick that stumbles the American. As trained to do, Overeem steps back out of range and into the southpaw stance to create space and avoid a counter, but when he sees Nelson fall, Overeem steps back in with a left hook the the body and then a left knee. Again, he darts back out of range on an angle to avoid any potential follow-up from Nelson.

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This is a safety-first kind of game: get in, do some damage, and then get back out. Overeem has the power to finish his opponent with any one of those assaults, but he also lands enough strikes to score points and win rounds while wearing his opponent down over the course of the fight. It’s an intelligent game that suits his physicality while minimizing his flaws.

Overeem hasn’t forgotten how to clinch, either, and that gives him an important backup skill set. No matter how good your movement, you can’t hope to stick your opponent outside forever; eventually, you’ll have to deal with them in close quarters, and considering Overeem’s fragility, it’s better for him to do so in the clinch than in the pocket.

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Here’s an example from his knockout win over Andrei Arlovski last May. The two fighters are tied up, and Arlovski is trying to block the dangerous knees he knows will be coming shortly. Note how far back Overeem’s hips are: Creating space is key to generating power in a knee strike, and the right knee that Overeem lands to Arlovski’s abdomen is absolutely crushing. Rather than pulling that leg back, however, Overeem places it to the outside of Arlovski’s left leg and uses that as a reap to trip the Belarusian to the ground.

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That’s a slick combination, and it’s just a taste of what Overeem can do on the inside. Engaging Overeem in the clinch is no more appealing than dealing with his stick-and-move game at range, especially given the threat of the takedown. Overeem has an exceptional top game and throws thunderous ground strikes, and that’s even less fun than facing his potent work on the feet.

So what’s the solution for dealing with the revamped, all-the-way-out or all-the-way-in version of Alistair Overeem? Does Stipe Miocic have what it takes to stymie this elusive and dangerous approach?

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On paper, this is a difficult matchup for the Cleveland native. A former Division I wrestler at Cleveland State University and a Golden Gloves boxer, Miocic mostly prefers to throw hands on the feet. The jab-cross is Miocic’s bread and butter:

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That’s a crisp, technical combination that Miocic will throw early and often. The problem here is Overeem’s unwillingness to hang out at a range where Miocic can land that jab-cross. Instead, Overeem will want to be at kicking distance, a step beyond the maximum distance where even long, straight punches can register. While Miocic isn’t a bad kicker, contenting himself with trading kicks with the former K-1 champion would be a godawful idea.

There’s little question that Overeem is the better clinch fighter, too, which leaves the pocket as the lone area where Miocic might have an edge. The problem is forcing the fight into that range, given Overeem’s evasiveness and the fact that while Miocic can pressure a bit, he’s not a come-forward, aggressive fighter by nature. He won’t find many opportunities to exchange punches.

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With that said, all is not lost for the Cleveland native. He’s a sharp counterpuncher, and if there’s an area where Overeem can still be hurt, it’s as he comes in.

Not a bad combination for Overeem, right? He steps in with a clubbing left hand and then follows with a right hook, which grazes dos Santos’s chin and drives him backward.

There are a couple of different problems here, though. First, dos Santos times Overeem’s initial burst and plants a counter left hook on the Dutchman’s chin as he comes in, and had the punch landed flush, it easily could have put Overeem to sleep. Second, unlike most of the examples we examined above, Overeem makes no attempt to reset or cut an angle after landing the punches. If dos Santos had planted his feet to exchange instead of retreating, he might have had some real success with a counter combination.

This is relevant for Miocic because, while the jab-cross at range is his bread and butter, he actually does his most devastating work as a counterpuncher. That’s how he knocked out Fabricio Werdum to win the title in May, and it’s how he finished Arlovski in January.

Take this example from Miocic’s losing effort against dos Santos in December 2014:

Miocic is pressuring, and dos Santos fires off a jab to keep the American at bay as he moves. Miocic doesn’t give dos Santos the space he wants, however, and immediately replies with a crisp straight right hand.

Here’s an example from Miocic’s fight with Arlovski:

Miocic has backed Arlovski to the fence. To escape, Arlovski needs space, and he tries a jab to get Miocic to back off. It lands, but Miocic responds with a short right hand over the top of Arlovski’s outstretched arm that buckles the Belarusian. Seeing that Arlovski is hurt, Miocic flurries.

Added to the pressuring counter he showed against dos Santos and the slip-counter Miocic employed against Arlovski is the backstepping counter right he used to finish Werdum.

Overeem’s path to victory is clear and straightforward: stay mobile, cut angles, and pick your spots to land hard kicks and blitzing combinations while using the clinch to avoid the pocket and prolonged exchanges. Miocic’s is more difficult, employing a combination of pressure and counterpunching to land a big shot on the fragile Overeem.

It’s a compelling matchup for the heavyweight title, and whether the hometown favorite emerges victorious or not, the Cleveland crowd will get its money’s worth from the main event.

Patrick Wyman is a mixed martial arts scout who’s earned his PhD. He hosts the Heavy Hands Podcast and contributes analysis to The Post.