Overeem Released From StrikeForce

[skflives]

To be fair Marloes Coenen was losing her previous fight against a novice Liz Carmouche,she pulled it out but she was losing badly

First of all, that's just an excuse and not a very good one at that. Secondly, she was just champion not even a week ago. Dana White has said that woman MMA's divisions aren't deep enough for him to consider them viable and so the obvious action would be to cut who was champion until recently.

[funkatron101]

Apparently it is because of the payment structure that Golden Glory requires.

"This is actually a pretty simple explanation," he said. "If you look back throughout history, we haven't had any Golden Glory guys fight with us since Semmy Schilt, right? And the reason is we have very different business practices. It's tough to do business with them. The bottom line is the way they do business is, you have to pay them, not the fighters," White said. "We don't work that way. It's not the way we do business. It's not how it works in the United States with the athletic commissions. You don't pay the managers and the managers pay the fighters. You pay the fighters and the fighters pay the managers."

This is a terrible attempt to spin this.

GG has barely had any MMA fighters, that's the reason for their lack of presence in the UFC. Aside from Manhoef and Overeem...who are both obvious juicers. Kharitonov has been kickboxing and doing it pretty poorly.

Why would they have signed Einemo?

White said that Einemo was the sole exception to the payment structure and that GG won't agree to any more deals like that.

Marloes Coenen posted her check showing it does not go to GG first. Basically called Dana out, and proved him wrong.

[REDDzone]

Ok posting her check was amazing. Coenen over Dana via 1 st rd armbar.

[SDM]

Ok posting her check was amazing. Coenen over Dana via 1 st rd armbar.

Dana by boxercise and media manipulation.

BS. I'm with everyone here. If you're pro-UFC on this matter, go join the huddled masses on Sherdog.

[High 5]

I'm surprised she made $37K.

[funkatron101]

To play the devil's advocate, it could be that since Zuffa took over, they started cutting the checks directly to the fighters, which made GG management say "Uh, this isn't how we did it before." Then started throwing demands out.

Dana, being the guy that he is, responds with "You aren't in a position to make a demand like that."

Coenen showed her last pay check, which happens to be the only one she has ever made under Zuffa.

In fact I'm not sure if any GG fighters within Strikeforce got paid from Zuffa until this last PPV.

So there may some legitimacy to what White is claiming.

[funkatron101]

http://ironforgesiron.com/2011/08/video ... y-ufc-133/

His take on the GG story seems very cut and dry and coincides with what I thought above.

His take on Fedor, not suprising, but come on. That is absurd.

[Spicy P]

http://ironforgesiron.com/2011/08/video-mauro-ranallo-debates-fedor-with-dana-white-golden-glory-ufc-133/

His take on the GG story seems very cut and dry and coincides with what I thought above.

His take on Fedor, not suprising, but come on. That is absurd.

Wow, this guy really hates Fedor

[Posey H8er]

Bas Rutten's response via twitter-

Many people have been asking MY view on what happened with StrikeForce and Golden Glory. Finally, after hearing from the fans and fighters involved, I thought to write what I though.

First thing we heard was: “Dana said that it was the problem from GG management, that they don’t want the checks directly to go to the fighters”. But then there is suddenly a picture from Marloes Coenen’s check on the Internet with her name on it, a check that she cashed herself.

Some will ask, “Why does GG do business like this?” Well, it’s for their own protection of course, but it probably started because some checks from Japan started to bounce from some organizations. And if they didn’t bounce, the fighters would be able to get them cashed 6 or 8 weeks later. Since fighters want their money right away, and GG loves their fighters, they said “No problem, we pay the fighters from our OWN money, pay their trainers and sparring partners, and then when the money comes in, we simply deduct everything from the check that is paid, this way everybody get’s paid”.
I know for a fact, 100% true, that they STILL need to get money from some organizations. The fighters got paid, but GG didn’t because they paid the fighters out of their own money. And some people say that they are crooks? Please explain this to me, who else, what management, give me one name, does this?

As a fighter, this would be something really cool, but even more for the trainers, because, ask trainers how many times they get paid by their fighters? You will be amazed with how many do NOT. I know fighters who became World champion in big organizations, even the UFC, and they never, yes, you read this good, NEVER, paid their trainer (OK, I might be wrong 1 or 2 times from the at least 10 or 15 times, but I am pretty sure I am not wrong). It sickens me and I would love to mention names, but out of respect of their coaches, I won’t. I hope those fighters read this, so they know that I know.

Anyway, these problems don’t exist at GG, at least not when the management is taking care of this.

So we know now why GG does this. And of course when GG heard that the UFC wanted to pay their fighters directly, and that they otherwise didn’t want to do business, GG right away said “OK, no problem”. And that’s why you saw that check from Marloes Coenen popping up.

So what is the real reason then that they let the fighters go?
Well, because we don’t have an answer now, I started speculating and thinking about everything, that’s something you do when you don’t have answers.

The truth is, I don't exactly know, but what I DO know is that Alistair Overeem was in a beautiful spot. When he would win the tournament, his contract would be over and that would put him in a really good spot.

That's about the same situation as I had in Pancrase. I had ONE more fight on the contract, and Pancrase waited for that moment and then put Funaki against me. They thought: "Funaki beat him before, he will do it again, and when that happens, we have Bas in a perfect position for the new contract".

But, that all fell through because I beat Funaki, and now I, not them, was holding the power to negotiate.

Similar position for Alistair, IF he would win his last fight on the contract of course.

You heard from Alistair that he went into the Werdum fight with an injury, and that Scott Coker knew this and told Alistair he HAD to fight, and if he would do that for him, he would give him time to "heal up" after the Werdum fight. "No worries, late fall is gonna be the finals", is what was said to Alistair, his trainer and management

Now, they suddenly changed the date, I believe it was because it fell on the same day as another event, but whatever the reason was (it doesn't really matter), Alistair was promised late fall, NOT early September.

Oh, and for people who wondered about this: why didn't Alistair tell the people he was injured right after his "not Alistair like" performance against Werdum? Because then the people could have understood why he was "off", right?

The reason of that is that Alistair hates people who look for excuses. He even said that Remy Bonjanski deserved an Oscar after he complained about a fight he lost; he also had hard words for Badr Hari when he complained why he lost against Alistair. So the last thing that Alistair wants to do, is be like the guys who he said looked for excuses. Otherwise people are gonna say “He’s complaining about those people, but he’s exactly the same!”

Now, the Big Foot fight, is probably the most important fight in his career, you don't think that he wants to be without injuries before he fights a guy like that?
Especially after fighting with an injury and not able to perform as usual. (he could have lost the fight against Werdum because of it).

And talking about injuries, why didn't StrikeForce ask for his medicals? Could it be because they already knew he was injured? Or did they simply want to get him out of that "Golden contract" that he had? I really don’t know what the reason is, but tell me, could it be something else? Because to me, it all looks weird, and you start getting those conspiracy theory's.

Like, could it be that during all the stress of selling the company, StrikeForce didn't realize what they were doing when making this, for Alistair really good, contract?

Or didn't it matter because they were selling the company anyway?

Because the fact that Alistair IS the StrikeForce heavyweight Champion (and only person in the world who holds a K1 World title and not 1, but 2 different MMA World titles), and that he DOES have a legitimate reason not to fight (X Rays plus letters from Doctors), makes me really wonder why they let him go.

And then, (if that's not weird enough), the next week they suddenly let the rest of GG go, Valentijn Overeem, OK, I expected that, he simply didn't fight, but Jon Olav Einemo (who they, by the way, also paid personally) was UFC and not StrikeForce. And Marloes Coenen after losing only her last fight, which was a World title fight they let her go!?

“They don’t like the management from GG”, is what I have been tweeted by MANY fans, and you know what? It really starts to look like this now.

But, then some of you will say, "Kharitanov is still there, they didn't fire him and he is also GG". Yes, that's true, but that could be true because otherwise everybody would have known 100% that it’s a "powerplay", (that’s what they call it on the internet).

Now we simply never "really know" what went on, all we can do is speculate and making conspiracy theories.

But, whatever the reasons are, the fans lose in this situation. Because the chances that Alistair is going to fight in the UFC now, are slim, and I don't know about you, but I would have loved to see Alistair versus Jr Dos Santos, two top strikers in an MMA match, hell yeah!

So let’s hope it get’s fixed!

Oh, last thing, just so that you know, because people also made their own stories about this in the past.
When Alistair won the SF belt he didn't have contract with SF. SF didn't offer Alistair a contract or fight from Nov 2007 until May of 2009 when they had secured the Showtime deal. This is why he never defended his belt throughout that time. They didn't have the money to pay him or the opponents for him to fight. Look for yourself; look at the heavyweight fights SF had between those dates? Was Alistair supposed to fight Paul Buentello over and over again?

[REDDzone]

I haven't had much internet access lately but I read somewhere that Einemo tweeted Dana that his contract said the fighter could be paid and not gg.

Plus Dana and Overeem have both recently said they want Overeem in the ufc. Such a weird situation. Gun to head though I don't think I believe Dana's claim about paying gg or whatever, I do think that is how gg wants them. However why would Dana say "gg absolutely, positively refuses to let us pay the fighter", yet Coenen and Einemo were both being paid directly?

[funkatron101]

I haven't had much internet access lately but I read somewhere that Einemo tweeted Dana that his contract said the fighter could be paid and not gg.

Plus Dana and Overeem have both recently said they want Overeem in the ufc. Such a weird situation. Gun to head though I don't think I believe Dana's claim about paying gg or whatever, I do think that is how gg wants them. However why would Dana say "gg absolutely, positively refuses to let us pay the fighter", yet Coenen and Einemo were both being paid directly?

Supposedly Einemo was the sole exception as he signed directly with the UFC and GG claimed they would not make any other exceptions.

This all happened after the last Strikeforce PPV, which was the first one the Zuffa was in charge of that featured GG fighters, and they paid the GG fighters directly. To which GG said "We can't do this going forward."

According to Dana, anyway.

What is not exactly clear, but assumed is that prior to Zuffa buying Strikeforce, Strikeforce management paid GG. Which seems believable considering their agreement with M-1, and their allowance of letting fighters fight outside of the organization. They seemed more flexible, which might have worked against them considering the financial trouble they faced.

[REDDzone]

I think there is truth to gg having weird business practices, but its just the front for why these fighters were cut. Olav is literally on twitter continuously talking about how its 100% fine with him to not have gg be paid.

@danawhite dana i wanted to get payed by GG,you said no and it was ok, we worked it out,so...? i dont get it! the check was in my name

What about Marloes & Alistair? John says its fine to pay him and not GG.

@**** yeah but thats not realy the point, thats just the excuse

Dana literally said something to the effect of gg would never change their policy, they are absolutely, positively set on being paid and not the fighters. Yet Coenen offered proof she was paid for her last fight, and Einemo was being paid directly as well. If this was something that was not negotiable at all and gg was dead set on it, then its weird that the ONLY two examples we have are of two fighters being paid directly.

[funkatron101]

I think there is truth to gg having weird business practices, but its just the front for why these fighters were cut. Olav is literally on twitter continuously talking about how its 100% fine with him to not have gg be paid.

@danawhite dana i wanted to get payed by GG,you said no and it was ok, we worked it out,so...? i dont get it! the check was in my name

What about Marloes & Alistair? John says its fine to pay him and not GG.

@**** yeah but thats not realy the point, thats just the excuse

Dana literally said something to the effect of gg would never change their policy, they are absolutely, positively set on being paid and not the fighters. Yet Coenen offered proof she was paid for her last fight, and Einemo was being paid directly as well. If this was something that was not negotiable at all and gg was dead set on it, then its weird that the ONLY two examples we have are of two fighters being paid directly.

Not if Zuffa paid the fighters directly in spite of GG wishes. Which is what could have spurned this whole dispute.

They were paid directly for the last event. If they really wanted to prove their point, and that this is not a GG requirement, they should post a check stub going directly to them prior to the Zuffa purchase.

[REDDzone]

But who cares if they were paid directly by sf or not? It is fact that gg wants to be paid and that the fighters want gg to be paid. The question is if that is negotiable and if the fighters are okay with being paid directly in the future.

And, according to the few gg fighters we have heard from, the answer is yes on both counts. Einemo was already being paid directly and said it was okay with him, and Coenen was paid directly for her last fight and seemingly okay with it as well.

[funkatron101]

Have the brass at GG issued a press release stating that they are ok with the fighters being paid directly from Zuffa?

I would think that would be all that is needed to denounce White's claims.

[REDDzone]

I have no idea if they have. But again, I don't think it matters. Just like Dana has said, zuffa deals with fighters, not the camps. The FIGHTERS have been saying they are okay being paid directly, why does it matter what gg thinks? Just like they won't be paid the fighters' money, I don't think they should be expected to speak for the fighters either (because if they stated they would not be okay with the fighters being paid directly, then they would be going against what the fighters themselves have said).