Fertitta and his partners sold the UFC to Endeavor in 2016, a deal that left White in control of day-to-day operations. Overeem remained with the UFC for another five years, but said the situation did not change. \u201cWe never sat down, we never really spoke about anything. So there is no relationship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Dutch veteran would have preferred a direct line to White. \u201cOf course,\u201d he said when asked if that access would have helped. Overeem fought his last UFC bout in February 2021, losing to Alexander Volkov, before returning to kickboxing and defeating Badr Hari in 2022.<\/p>\n
![\"Alistair](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Alistair-Overeem-1.jpg\")
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Alistair Overeem Questions Dana White\u2019s Long-Term Impact on Boxing<\/p>\n
His view comes from a career built across several promotions. Overeem became Strikeforce and DREAM champion before winning the 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix, and he said being able to compete in different places helped shape his rise.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy rise came during the multi-promotions era,\u201d Overeem said. \u201cYou can fight often, you kind of negotiate as you go. For me, that was very good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overeem<\/a> sees boxing\u2019s mix of promoters, belts, showmanship and Saudi-backed events as a feature rather than a problem. He believes the UFC\u2019s single-promotion model gave him access to important fights but took away part of the experience.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last 10 years I was only with the UFC and not much else was happening,\u201d Overeem said. \u201cIt was a little bit boring, I would have to say. It was less coloured.\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed to entrances as one example. Overeem often experimented with walkout music and props in Japan, including carrying hammers to the ring, but said that room disappeared in the UFC. \u201cI was always playing around with my entrance and the music,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then in the UFC we couldn\u2019t do anything. It was literally just walk to the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n Overeem is now preparing for a possible boxing comeback<\/a> after training with Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s team. Usyk stopped<\/a> Rico Verhoeven in the 11th round in May, though Verhoeven had kept the contest close at the Pyramids of Giza and was ahead on one official scorecard when the bout ended with one second left in the round.<\/p>\n That experience has added another name to Overeem\u2019s potential boxing options, alongside Francis Ngannou<\/a>. But he remains wary of a Zuffa Boxing<\/a> expansion that mirrors<\/a> the UFC structure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay he\u2019s in the boxing world, but in the long run, I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to be good for boxing,\u201d Overeem said. \u201cIt\u2019s good for the short run, it\u2019s good for the mid run, long run \u2013 no. Because it can become too dominant and then you\u2019re gonna see creativity go down if Zuffa Boxing keeps expanding. You\u2019re actually seeing that in MMA right now. The creativity, the events, the amount of fighters that you are choosing from. The heavyweight division in the UFC is not very deep, right? And through the years it was always very deep.\u201d<\/p>\n Overeem believes a dominant promoter could reduce the variety that has drawn him back toward boxing. \u201cI think it kills creativity,\u201d he said. \u201cThe boxing world, it\u2019s a very exciting landscape. UFC doesn\u2019t motivate me. Even to watch, it doesn\u2019t motivate me.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alistair Overeem is interested in boxing again, but he is not sold on Dana White\u2019s Zuffa Boxing project…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-845736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Alistair](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MixCollage-14-Jul-2024-11-57-PM-5368-1024x536.jpg\")
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