Alistair Overeem is fighting again, and he’s leaving the shins at home. The former UFC heavyweight will box fellow UFC alum Jimi Manuwa over six rounds on December 24 at Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, in the co-main event beneath Jake Paul vs. Cédric Doumbé.
Ariel Helwani had it first on X Thursday morning. The PFL, which is promoting the card, posted its own announcement about nine minutes later. ESPN reported the six-round distance and the co-main placement, and Sky Sports also reported the bout’s addition to the Christmas Eve show.
The detail that jumps out came from Helwani: “Overeem’s first fight of any kind since Feb. 2021.” That’s no kickboxing, no MMA, no exhibitions, nothing, for close to six years. Whatever version of Overeem walks out in Dubai, nobody has seen him under real lights in a long time.
View post on X
One small housekeeping note. The PFL’s announcement called the date Saturday, December 24th in the main text, then listed Thursday, December 24th in the event info underneath. Christmas Eve falls on a Thursday this year, so go with the second one.
The Main Event Noise
The headliner has already been loud. Paul and Doumbé came face to face for the first time on Tuesday, per the PFL and Championship Rounds, and the PFL also posted that Paul wants Doumbé in MMA too, which means this boxing match might only be the opening act of a longer business relationship.
View post on X
Paul didn’t make friends with the crowd in Paris, either. In a clip shared by Happy Punch, he fired back at fans who were booing him: “Why y’all booing? You should boo yourself. Didn’t this place burn down? Shut the f*ck up!”
Darren Till also weighed in on X with a post aimed at Paul that I won’t reprint in full, though it ended with “bums bums bums,” which is about as Till as a sentence can get.
Tickets go on sale Sunday, November 15.
View post on X
Quick Take
I’ll always take two big men from the UFC heavyweight days throwing hands over another interim belt nobody asked for, and booking them as the co-main on a Jake Paul card is the kind of chaos I want from a matchmaker. Six rounds is a sensible distance for a guy coming off a layoff that started in February 2021. It’s also plenty of time for heavyweights to land something that ends the night early. December 24 in Dubai is when we find out how much is left in Overeem’s tank.
