Alistair Overeem Says He Was “70-80%” Against Mark Hunt

Alistair Overeem says sushi caused him to be less than 100% against Mark Hunt.

At UFC 209, Overeem would defeat Hunt via knockout in the third round. Overeem says a team meal a few days before the bout was the cause of his illness that would drive him to the hospital even on the day of the fight. In an interview on Toe-2-Toe with Brian Stann, Overeem would outline how everything developed. 

"Basically I got food poisoning Thursday evening, I got sick. But I just went to bed and I didn't feel anything. Thursday we ate sushi, So that's a big recommendation to all the fighters out there, do not eat freaking sushi before a fight, in fight week, because it can't go well." said Overeem. " I went out to dinner with the whole team and every thing was great, went to bed and the next morning it started, woke up at eight or nine A.M. and it just started. It got pretty bad. I still did the weigh ins, I didn't eat all day, I got some stuff for my stomach, some pills, didn't really help," continued Overeem.

The card lost Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Tony Ferguson because of weight cutting issues for Nurmagomedov. Overeem says when he learned about the cancelation, he knew he had to fulfill his obligation to get into the cage with Hunt. 

"After the weigh ins, everyone gets the post-weigh in speech by Dana, all the corners and coaches. Like 'guys come on, give it your best performance, don't say nasty words on pay-per-view or FOX. Give it your best, give it your all', that kind of speech. He then said "we have one loss, one fight got dropped, so you guys need to step it up" and at that point not fighting did not come up to me, I didn't want to think about it, I never cancel a fight, at that point I knew this fight was definitely not going to get pulled because it will harm the card and that can't happened," said Overeem. 

He said he woke up on the day of UFC 209 feeling better but still felt about seventy to eighty percent healthy. He would also say he found motivation because of the critical things Hunt said about him leading up to the fight. 

Toe-2-Toe with Brian Stann can be heard on SirusXM with clips posted to SoundCloud.