Alistair Overeem Thinks He’d Have Retired By Now If He Hadn’t Switched Gyms

Longtime mixed martial arts (MMA) veteran Alistair Overeem has trained all over the world and with some of the best the sport has to offer. Overeem has been with gyms such as Golden Glory, JacksonWinkMMA, his current home at Colorado’s Elevation Fight Team, amongst others.

Had he not experienced other gyms, Overeem tells “The MMA Hour” his career might have ended a long time ago (via MMA Fighting):

“If I had stayed in one or two places, I’d probably be retired by now,” Overeem said. “Because as a fighter, you can get compromised. It’s not for everybody, but I have been compromised a couple times in my career, and to me, it was do or die time. I had to make some changes.

“Sometimes I didn’t want to make changes, but I still had to make changes if I wanted to continue my career. Let’s go back to my last loss to Curtis Blaydes — actually that was two in a row, because I had lost to Francis (Ngannou) and I lost to Curtis. I was training out of Jackson’s. The chemistry there, we had a good chemistry, but it was just finished.

“And to me, I still want to fight, so you’re going to keep doing something that doesn’t work for you? Or you’re going to make changes and figure it out again? And to me, I had to do that. I had to figure it out again. I still felt I could do that. Back then I was 37, I’m 38 years old now. But I felt like I could still do it, I need to do it.”

Overeem is currently slated to fight Alexey Oleynik in the main event of UFC Saint Petersburg on April 20. He was initially expected to face Alexander Volkov, however, undisclosed reasons forced the Russian off the card. The fight will be Oleinik’s 70th professional MMA fight.

He faces Overeem, who snapped a two-fight losing streak in November with a first-round TKO win over Sergey Pavlovich.

Do you think Overeem would be retired if he hand’t switched gyms?