Brock Lesnar Returns Against Alistair Overeem On December 30th

Dana White announced the fight on Twitter. The fight will be on Friday, December 30 because New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday.

Lesnar, who hasn’t fought since last October when he lost the UFC heavyweight championship to Cain Velasquez was just recently said to be completely healthy again. With Lesnar’s health problems over the last couple years, it was questionable whether or not he would ever fight again. Hopefully, he’s really, really healthy this time. And boy did the UFC give him a big opponent for his return.

Fans have been waiting for Overeem to come to the UFC since Zuffa bought Strikeforce. Overeem hasn’t lost in nearly four years. While he’s mostly (completely, save Werdum) been crushing cans in that time, he has maintained the Strikeforce belt and crushed most of his cans very effectively. Overeem is coming off a win over Fabricio Werdum in June in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Oh, and he’s also a pretty good striker, having won the K-1 Grand Prix last year.

Strikeforce and the Heavyweight Grand Prix, are now officially useless. Nick Diaz is in the UFC. Dan Henderson will be there soon. All that remains are two women – Cris Cyborg and Gina Carano – who haven’t fought in well over a year and Gilbert Melendez. This is truly the death rattle of Strikeforce. We just have to wait and see if Zuffa can effectively rebrand Strikeforce as a sort of minor league feeding system.

Update: According to Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole, Overeem was originally offered the winner of Dos Santos – Velasquez and and immediate title shot. he turned that down in favor of fighting “immediately” against Lesnar.

[LA Times]