Alistair Overeem is, once again, on the cusp of a crack at the UFC crown. It seems hard to believe because the two men locked into the heavyweight division’s next title fight have both handily beaten him in ways that make it hard to imagine the Dutchman finally winning the belt that has eluded him for the last decade. And yet at forty years old the grizzled veteran of almost a hundred professional MMA and kick-boxing matches is putting together another decently impressive streak of wins.

The Overeem story divides neatly into chapters with fans creating clean cut eras of Young Overeem, Ubereem, Econoreem and so on. This is partly down to Overeem’s physical transformations—gangly light heavyweight to monstrous heavyweight muscleman to a slightly softer, regularly drug tested giant—but as much to do with changes in his methodology. It is as though Overeem makes a run at the belt, trying something new, eventually hits a roadblock, and then goes back to the drawing board.

One such notable shift was Overeem’s switch to what fans term “Econoreem”. After playing the role of a tank in Strikeforce and his early UFC run, Overeem came to gain a reputation for fragility with a trilogy of rough knockout losses to much sloppier fighters in Antonio Silva, Travis Browne and Ben Rothwell. Then when Overeem was booked to fight Junior dos Santos—a thudding puncher, expected to find the Dutchman’s shaky chin early and often—Overeem was suddenly all about backing off, drawing his man forward, switching to southpaw and scoring with single shots.

The current “build” of Overeem is the result of a move to Elevation Fight Team after a loss to their charge, Curtis Blaydes. Overeem, never afraid to swallow his pride, now trains with Blaydes and gets his marching orders from the team that bested him. Elevation have made an interesting acquisition in Overeem because rather than trying to round out the edges on a rough prospect with one stand out skill like Blaydes, they are working with a fighter who has been around for two decades and has an incredibly rare level of technical ability through all phases of the fight. The work for Overeem’s team seems to be choosing the skills from his near bottomless bag of tricks that will accentuate his advantages in any fight, and then in convincing Overeem to believe in them and himself.

For example, Jairzinho Rozenstruik is exactly the sort of match up Overeem would lose his head about. A big, patient hitter. Think back to Overeem’s bouts with Rothwell and Ngannou, or his second fight with Kharitonov. Yes, he got caught by big hitters, but he did himself no favours by half heartedly poking out punches and then trying to run out in the opposite direction. Overeem has had fights against equally dangerous punchers—such as Mark Hunt and Junior dos Santos—where he was composed and controlled throughout. He is a man with more tools than almost anyone at heavyweight to give him a good shot at winning in spite of his durability issues, but his own second guessing seems to remove all of his technical ability from the equation.

Pursuing the Takedown, Fighting the Hands

After moving to Elevation in September of 2018, one of the most notable new features of Overeem’s fights was the pursuit of takedowns. From his UFC debut in December 2011 to his fight with Blaydes in June 2018, Overeem completed just three takedowns in the UFC and didn’t attempt many more. Since the move to Elevation, Overeem has pursued and achieved the takedown against four of his last five opponents, the lone exception being Oleinik who is a dead duck on the feet and did in fact opt to pull guard on Overeem anyway.

Sergei Pavlovich was Overeem’s first opponent after the camp shift and that bout immediately gave Demolition Man fans hope. Against an undefeated prospect with terrific hands, Overeem was an overwhelming force. It hinged heavily on what was the most significant part of his masterclass against Mark Hunt punch and clutch.

Each time Overeem moved in to throw a right or a left hook, he dipped into a clinch or snagged a collar tie, and started moving Pavlovich around, safe from the counter.

If you go all the way back to day one Overeem—arriving in PRIDE FC in his late teens—you will see the knees. That was what he was about: stepping knees, jumping knees, clinch knees. To this day, Overeem’s knees are among the best you will see in MMA. Overeem’s new corner have him using the clinch, recycling his head position to gain the head post and underhook on the same side, and looking for knees throughout. And it shows in his opponents: they overcommit to defending the knees and offer up easy takedowns and follow ups. Overeem caught Oleinik by feinting a knee and skipping into a bicycle knee with the other leg. Pavlovich ate a couple of knees to the midsection and decided he wanted no more of that, so when Overeem punched himself into the double collar tie and started pushing Pavlovich back, the Russian lifted one leg to obstruct the knee, allowing Overeem to step deep and trip him.

Between the winding knees to the midsection, the gruelling work in the clinch, and the beautiful trips, Pavlovich was puffing early, and then he found himself underneath Overeem and unable to prevent the Reem from simply bludgeoning him with his fists.

Some of Overeem’s new looks on the ground are particularly interesting. It is no secret that MMA’s best ground and pounders are focusing on wrist rides and hand traps since Khabib Nurmagomedov became top dog, but Overeem’s wrist riding seems as likely to be influenced by his training partner and former foe, Curtis Blaydes. Blaydes’ fight against Alexander Volkov was five rounds of Volkov going to the turtle, then getting his arm chopped and pulled across to his opposite hip pocket.

Handfighting on the ground is not exactly new to Overeem though—fans will remember him pounding out Stefan Struve from closed guard while pinning one hand to the giant’s chest, and twisting the 260 pound Frank Mir’s arm up behind his head before blasting him with straight punches. Yet in his Elevation run Overeem seems to be funnelling opponents into control positions more often—particularly that quarter mount with the far wrist.

Against Walt Harris, Overeem began gift wrapping Harris the moment he got top position, then mounted into the quarter guard while controlling both of Harris’ hands.

When Harris began to roll away to his knees, Overeem switched to fold Harris down on his far wrist—the infamous “Dagestani Handcuff.” The rest of the round was the exact same sequence fans saw play out on repeat in Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Michael Johnson and Edson Barboza. Overeem’s work on the hands and wrists also shined when Oleinik and Rozenstruik tried to turtle and stand against him.

Control of the wrists and hands is something that Overeem’s corner have been encouraging constantly through his last five bouts. Even when he is working from closed guard as against Sakai and Pavlovich, they are imploring him to beat the hands first and then build up to standing to land strikes and control the opponent’s ankles. Very few people in MMA are making effective ground and pound from the full guard but when everyone is 250 pounds plus the stand ups are a lot slower and simple wrist strips to hammer fists and elbows carry a lot more weight. Against Augusto Sakai and Sergei Pavlovich, Overeem was able to dish out a terrific amount of damage from the top of closed guard until they either let him out or kicked him away, at which point he would stand over them and control the ankles. This is where the leg drag comes in.

The leg drag was a top-of-the-heap innovation in jiu jitsu about a decade ago because it places the opponent on their side and denies their ability to turn their back onto the mat. It is the perfect example of giving the opponent a way out of a position and encouraging them to do so. Because the top man is kneeling on the bottom’s man’s bottom leg, the roll will be a laboured effort and the top man can pursue the back or, as Overeem does, look to control a wrist and begin to batter the turtle as the opponent rolls.

To get there, Overeem just needs to provide enough threat while standing over the opponent that they try to push off him with their feet. At that point Overeem can hip in and drag the leg across to the opposite side of his body (hence the name.)

From a pure grappling perspective, the leg drag as a position doesn’t have a lot of attacks except for forcing the turn out. In MMA, it is a pretty decent striking position. Most of the time the strike will just make the roll happen, but with heavyweights—trying to roll 250 pounds of their own weight while 250 pounds of their opponent is kneeling on their bottom leg—the roll might not come. Overeem finished a tired Augusto Sakai in the leg drag, pinning his top hand and turning over elbows until Herb Dean intervened.

Protecting the Brain Box

Using his grappling more has been the grand theme of Overeem’s recent run, but his team have also done well preparing him for the quirks of individual opponents. Against Pavlovich he hit well, but stuck to Pavlovich to deny returns, taking advantage of his edge in raw power while hiding his chin. Against Aleksei Oleinik, Overeem backed off and looked for counter knees as Oleinik entered with his head low. And it was actually in a losing performance that Overeem’s work with Elevation really stood out.

Against Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Overeem looked as awkward and jumpy as he did against Rothwell and Ngannou, but his team took his ability to do a little bit of everything comfortably and built a gameplan which took Rozenstruik out of the fight until the very last seconds. In that fight, Overeem stood southpaw for basically the entire duration and each time he returned to the corner his team implored him to keep taking away Rozenstruik’s left hand. Rozenstruik’s big wins had been scored with short counter left hooks and jabs as opponents stepped in, so by keeping his hand on top of Rozenstruik’s, Overeem sacrificed his own jab and lead hook to remove that threat.

Overeem’s output for the fight was extremely one note. He pitched the odd left hand and then he fell into the clinch. But it took away Rozenstruik’s favourite counter and moved Overeem into an area where he had significant advantages over the relatively one dimensional kickboxer.

One of the strangest parts of Overeem’s recent run, however, has been his use of a high double forearms cover up. This is especially notable because when Overeem moved back from kick-boxing to MMA and suddenly started getting knocked out, the general consensus was that it was because he didn’t have large gloves to hide behind with the static guard he used in K-1. Yet Overeem’s most impressive wins during this recent five fight stint have involved extended periods of Overeem going high forearms and backing up to the fence. This very high guard looks like a man turtling on the feet as he circles the drain but it is something that you will hear his corner talking to him about between rounds as if it is part of the plan.

In spite of appearances Overeem has done a surprisingly decent job of frustrating his opponents with slight head movement and high elbows as they swarm on him along the fence. Or more accurately “active elbows”—as Overeem did well tilting and turning within his guard to obstruct and even elbow spike the uppercuts thrown by Sakai and Oleinik. And therein seems to be the genius—perhaps he is halfway to the floor, perhaps he isn’t. But his last five opponents have swarmed in on him along the fence, expecting to finish a famously fragile fighter, and each has failed to do so from there.

Almost invariably, after swinging half a dozen blows, Overeem’s opponents will either back off and reset, grab a hold to try and keep him in place as they swing, or lean into him. The latter two offer Overeem the clinch and this run has been marked by his activity from there. Oleinik swung himself into the clinch and then ate knees until he fell to the mat. Sakai exhausted himself doing little of real effect (spare a nice folding elbow) and then went to lean on Overeem, who promptly tripped him to the mat and began that fight’s downward spiral for Sakai.

Oddly, watching Overeem lean back on the fence then take the collar tie and biceps tie or collar tie and overhook conjures images of the ageing Muhammad Ali, who used to do this to tire out opponents and take breaks when his legs began to slow down. For the last five Overeem fights, this writer has squirmed each time the Dutchman has gone to the fence covering up, and yet the heavyweight division’s most infamous chin seems to be remarkably survivable there.

Against Walt Harris, Overeem was caught half heartedly level changing with his chin out and sent stumbling. In fact, if there is an area where Overeem really does lack in technical ability it has to be lower body takedowns, his level changes are almost glacial—like a grandfather performing the “going down to the basement” mime behind sofa to get a laugh out of his grandkids—yet the moment he has an upper body clinch he moves with the grace of a dancer half his weight. But to return to our point: Overeem was most certainly not playing possum when he went to the fence against Walt Harris and yet Harris found little joy, becoming frustrated and throwing a front kick straight at Overeem’s face. Overeem took some of it but immediately took advantage, dumping Harris to the mat and pursuing wrist control.

Perhaps that is the change that has stood out most in Overeem in his last five fights. To even the experienced observer, it often looks as though he is moments from folding and yet he never does. In fact, his best moments of offence have often come from convincing the opponent that they are on the cusp of another highlight reel knockout over the chinny legend, Alistair Overeem. Yes, Overeem’s team have done well at convincing the Demolition Man to fight in a way that favours his technical advantages over most opponents and protects him from wild exchanges, but perhaps getting Overeem to fight to his strengths is the lesser of their contributions. Maybe the secret to getting the best out of Alistair Overeem wasn’t hyping him up and getting him to overwhelm his opponents with offence, but giving him the practice with the cover up and the comfort in the position that he goes to when everything is going south in a hurry.