Getty UFC Fight Night: Walt Harris will take on Alistair Overeem in the main event of an 11-bout card Saturday.
Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, will host the third UFC event in a week when heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Walt Harris face off in the main event of an 11-bout UFC Fight Night card Saturday.
Note: Heavy may earn an affiliate commission if you sign up via a link on this page
The prelims (6 p.m. ET start time) and the main card (9 p.m. ET) will both be televised on ESPN, but if you don’t have cable, anyone in the United States can watch every fight via ESPN+:
Once signed up, you can then watch Overeem vs Harris and all the fights on your computer via ESPN.com, or you can watch on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other compatible streaming device via the ESPN app.
For all of those options, you’ll need to sign in with your ESPN+ account to watch.
UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Harris Preview
Both fighters enter this one in very different places. No. 8 ranked Overeem (45-18-1) has gone 3-3 in his last six UFC bouts, while the No. 9 Harris (13-7-1) has gone 3-0-1 in his last four fights.
The fight promises to be an extra emotional one for Harris. It will be his first fight since his 19-year-old stepdaughter, Aniah Blanchard, was kidnapped and murdered last fall.
“I went through a dark, dark period as you know,” Harris told the media via virtual press conference Thursday. “You could probably already imagine. I felt myself slipping in the opposite direction of what I set out to be as a man and as a father.” He said it took a conversation with his wife to convince him to start training again after the tragedy.
“I had a talk with my wife one day, and she was like, ‘Why don’t you start back training and get your mind off of it?’” Harris said. “There was a point where, honestly, thinking about anything but my daughter was wrong. I battled that so hard. I was like, ‘If I go back to fighting, am I not thinking for her? Am I not doing the right thing by her?’”
Harris said he returned to action after he realized it was what his daughter would want. “I prayed about it,” Harris said. “I could hear her telling me, ‘Daddy, I want you to go back. I want you to fight’ …That’s when I went back in the gym and started getting back in shape. I put a goal out there of when I wanted to fight, just to kind of give myself some incentive and motivation outside of what I already had.”
For his part, Overeem respects Harris’ personal tragedy and has let it be known that he supports his opponent. “Walt is a cool guy, and it’s definitely a tragedy what happened to him. But I really just see this as a sports competition,” Overeem told FanSided. “We have to continue, we’re gonna put on a great show, we’re gonna put on a great main event.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be no fans present, which is something Overeem is looking forward to most Saturday. “I’ve been fighting for a long time and I’m actually excited about the no audience part. It will be different, it will be unique but for me, I’m very intrigued by new things,” Overeem said. “It’ll just be different, but I like new stuff. I do not expect it to take away from my performance at all.”