Alistair Overeem Says He Was Hospitalized Twice Before UFC 209 Win

Alistair Overeem spoke with Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour about his win over Mark Hunt at UFC 209. Overeem said that he was hospitalized both Friday and Saturday after suffering from nausea. The highlights are below:

On his condition on Friday: “I was dizzy in the head, I was nauseous, extremely low energy. I had a hard time coming out of the bed. I didn’t want to come out of the bed…Yeah, it was pretty bad….I was messed up. It kind of got worse during the day. Then it got really bad.”

On getting an IV and medications for nausea and diarrhea to be able to continue: “We checked everything with USADA before. Listen, we don’t want to get in any trouble. We’ve had our troubles, we learned from it. We’re not gonna go in that direction any time again. We really did our homework.”

On being hospitalized again on Saturday: “When I woke up I was kind of better, but not really. Still low energy. So again, hospital and IV. That was fight day.”

On how he was feeling before the fight: “I felt kind of OK for the fight and I really wanted to do it. Especially, you know Khabib dropped and we had the weigh-ins and always after the weigh-ins we get this motivational speech from Dana. And Dana was pissed, because the Khabib fight was cancelled. If that happens, then there’s not gonna be another cancellation. That’s just the way it is. I just knew that this is gonna be enough. Even if I’m 70 percent, I can still beat Mark Hunt. So that’s what we did.”