After a false start last year that saw him drop out of a fight due to injury, former UFC heavyweight and Strikeforce champ Alistair Overeem will make his kickboxing return this October.
Overeem, who made his pro kickboxing debut back in 1999, several months before embarking on a parallel career in MMA, will face Badr Hari for the third time on October 8, 2022. The event is set to take place at GLORY Collision 4 at the GelreDome Stadium in Arnhem, Netherlands.
Promotion officials announced the news Wednesday. Dutch outlet Ad.nl was first to report the match-up.
“The Demolition Man” and Badr Hari have met twice before, in 2008 and 2009. Overeem won the pair’s initial meeting, finishing the fight care of a left hook KO. Hari then took his revenge a year later, winning the rematch by TKO care of the two-knockdown rule.
Both fights finished inside of a round.
Alistair Overeem, released by the UFC last year, was supposed to face Rico Verhoeven at GLORY Collision 3 last October. He hasn’t competed in kickboxing in over a decade, but is a former K-1 champion.
The Dutch striker ended his UFC run going 4-3 from 2018 to 2021. His final fight, a TKO loss against Alexander Volkov, snapped a two-fight win streak. Despite entering the UFC as a highly touted champion in other organizations, Overeem would never claim gold inside the octagon, coming up short in his lone opportunity against Stipe Miocic in 2016.
Next month, Overeem will make his pro wrestling debut against former WWE star Braun Strowman, now billed as Adam “The Titan” Scherr.
