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UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem celebrated a very special 40th birthday in Florida on Saturday. Few minutes before his birthday, "The Reem" entered the Octagon to face the heavy-hitting Walt Harris in the main event of UFC on ESPN 8 at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.
Coming off a devastating KO loss at the hands of Jairzinho Rozenstruik, a lot was riding on the fight for veteran fighter Overeem and he rose to the occasion brliiantly, picking up a hard-earned TKO win over Harris halfway through the second round of the back and forth contest.
Entering forty, Overeem knows that he's probably nearing the end of his career as a professional fighter, and time is quickly running out for Overeem to fill the only void in what has otherwise been a heck of a career. During the post-fight press conference, Overeem acknowledged the fact that he is in the final phase of his fighting career but also claimed that he has one last title run left in him.
“We’re still hunting for the title. I would say also I’m in the last phase of my career. So those two things are a little bit on my mind. Finish up the career and one more run at the title. So we’ll have some time off, enjoy my 40th birthday. Then I dunno, fight again in September, October. Not too long of a layoff. I think September / October will be nice.”
The Dutchman also shared his opinion on a first time experience in his long career - fighting inside an empty arena without any audience in attendance.
“This was fight number 92. It kind of reminded me of my early fights, I have to go all the way back to 1997 when there was 200 or 300 people in the audience. This was a little bit different, and I don’t know ... it motivated me. It was different, it was cool. I liked it, I enjoyed it.”
