Overeem's Hand Injury Caused by Brawl With Nightclub Bouncers

Reports surfaced this week concerning Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and a hand injury that forced him out of consideration for a fight on Strikeforce's upcoming June 6th event in St. Louis.  Although many assumed that the injury happened during training, a new interview conducted by Fighters Only with Overeem's trainer, Bas Boon, shines a revealing light on what actually happened to his hand:

"Alistair attended some famous dance club with his brother Valentine. Went to the toilet and did not have coins to pay the toilet woman. Alistair told her he would pay a euro when he came back, because he did not have change. Then the security guard who was near by started to get involved," he wrote.

"Brother Valentine saw the incident and also started asking what the problem was. They offered to pay, but by then 6 security guards came over surrounding them. The Overeem brothers were asked to leave, Alistair was already outside when he saw his brother Valentine fighting.

"Valentine still was discussing the situation on his way outside with one of the security guards hit Valentine in the face with a flash light. Three security guards dived onto Valentine and brother Alistair wanted to go back inside to help his brother. This resulted in five security guards in the hospital."

"It was only because of the management pushing him to go to the hospital that he saved his hand. When he finally got his injury checked, he was advised to stay a few days in the hospital. They told him if he would have come any later he would have lost his hand," said Boon.

Although this wouldn't be the first bar fight a pro MMA fighter has found himself in, and it's difficult to determine who was really to blame for the incident based on Boon's account, it seems that things escalated far more than they probably should have.  While it appears that the Overeem brothers could have perhaps simply left the club when they were asked to instead of trying to argue, what's more disconcerting is that Boon seems to be almost gloating that Overeem put five security guards in the hospital.

I do wish Alistair a speedy recovery though, and it's fortunate that he did suffered any serious damage.  Elsewhere in the report, it mentions that the bit about Overeem potentially "losing his hand" is referencing a cut that the heavyweight suffered during the brawl which later became infected and required hospitalization.