68°Good Morning
Alistair Overeem before his fight with Brett "The Grim" Rogers...

Alistair Overeem before his fight with Brett "The Grim" Rogers in a Strikeforce heavyweight title fight. (May 15, 2010) Credit: AP

Alistair Overeem, the Strikeforce heavyweight champion, no longer gets that descriptive phrase following his name.

Overeem was cut from the Strikeforce roster on Friday, according to a report by HDNet's "Inside MMA" and later confirmed to MMAFighting.com and MMAJunkie.com by sources close to the fighter. Newsday has put calls into Strikeforce officials seeking confirmation as well.

Strikeforce, owned by UFC parent company Zuffa, exercised its right to remove the final fight from his contract, according to the Inside MMA report.

Overeem (35-11) decisioned Fabricio Werdum in the opening round of the Strikeforce Grand Prix on June 18, 2011. Since then, things haven't gone so well for  "The Reem" aka "The Demolition Man."

Overeem was pulled from the Grand Prix tournament on July 18 because he did not accept the Sept. 10 fight date set forth by broadcast partner Showtime. Overeem said he needs to recover from a broken toe and banged-up ribs.

This is just the latest turn in the saga of Overeem and Strikeforce. He won the Strikeforce title on Nov. 16, 2007, and did not defend that belt until May 15, 2010. In between, he fought for Dream in Japan and United Glory in Europe. After defending his title in May 2010, Overeem then went back to Japan to compete and win the K-1 Grand Prix tournament.

Overeem is reportedly scheduled to fight in Europe for a United Glory event in October.

What happens next, no one is quite sure yet. Perhaps there will be more answers after tonight's Fedor Emelianenko-Dan Henderson bout.

4th OF JULY

25¢

for 6 MONTHS

Choose your deal >>

Cancel anytime - New subscribers only