Former UFC heavyweight champion, and current co-host of HDNet’s “Inside MMA” program, Bas ‘El Guapo’ Rutten (28-4-1) has offered his “Two-Cents” on the current situation between the Golden Glory gym and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Rutten offered quite the statement via Twitter/TwitLonger (@BasRuttenMMA) on Tuesday, concerning the dismissal of Golden Glory fighters Marloes Coenen, Valentijn Overeem, and Jon Olav Einemo by Zuffa last week.
Basically in the message ‘El Guapo’ defends Golden Glory’s business practices, saying that the management uses the practice of being paid by certain promotions to protect their fighters. So that if a promotion fails to pay the fighter on time (K-1 ringing any bells), that fighter will still receive their money as Golden Glory will pay them out of their own pocket, and will then go after the promotion to recover those funds.
It is certainly less malicious than what UFC President Dana White was talking about last week, but certainly has it’s negative points also.
Here is a lot of what Rutten had to say. Be sure to hit the link above to read his entire statement.
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?….
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.
….
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).….
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?