RIO DE JANEIRO — The bridge between UFC president Dana White and former Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem may have been scorched a bit in recent weeks, but it apparently never caught fire and burned.
Even after Zuffa removed Overeem from the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix and released him from his contract, citing problems with his Golden Glory management team, the two sides are discussing a potential future together, White confirmed following the UFC 134 post-fight press conference.
“We’re talking,” White said. “You guys know how that whole thing went down. Golden Glory was in this position where we couldn’t do business and they changed their position, which I respect. Now we can do business.”
That position, of course, was an insistence on having all fighter purses funneled through Golden Glory rather than paid directly to the fighters themselves, according to White.
That was an arrangement that Zuffa simply couldn’t work with, the UFC president said, and disagreements over it brought about the release of Overeem, as well as fellow Golden Glory fighters Marloes Coenen and Jon Olav Einemo.
“We’re never going to be in a situation where we pay managers and not fighters,” White said. “We pay fighters, and fighters pay managers. We’re never going to be in that situation. I don’t care who the guy is.”
Then again, it didn’t seem to help matters that Overeem had refused to fight on the September 10 date set for the semifinal round of the Grand Prix, insisting he wouldn’t be ready until October.
But now that Golden Glory has softened their stance on payment issues, according to White, there’s once again dialogue between the two sides regarding the Dutch heavyweight.
The question is, are they talking about bringing him back to Strikeforce, or injecting him into the UFC’s heavyweight division, which could certainly use the infusion of big name talent right about now? After all, Golden Glory has expressed interest in signing a new contract with the UFC, so could that be Overeem’s new home sooner rather than later?
“We’ll see what happens,” White said with a shrug.
In other words, nothing is out of the question at this point.