Tag: Bas Boon

Bas Rutten Gives More Details About Golden Glory-Overeem Falling Out and They Are Doozies


(“He’s behind me, isn’t he?”)

Bas Rutten spoke with longtime MMA reporter and color analyst Paul Lazenby earlier this week and when talk turned to the dispute between his fellow countrymen and longtime friends with Golden Glory and Alistair Overeem, “El Guapo” revealed a few interesting tidbits from conversations he had with both sides. They say that in any dispute there are two sides to the story and that the truth lays somewhere in the middle and being that he has relationships with both parties, Rutten’s view is a bipartisan one.

According to Bas, contrary to what Alistair is telling everyone, it was him and Not Golden Glory who are to blame for the situation and that the split came because Overeem has no loyalty to the people who were behind him through the good and bad times in his career.


(“He’s behind me, isn’t he?”)

Bas Rutten spoke with longtime MMA reporter and color analyst Paul Lazenby earlier this week and when talk turned to the dispute between his fellow countrymen and longtime friends with Golden Glory and Alistair Overeem, “El Guapo” revealed a few interesting tidbits from conversations he had with both sides. They say that in any dispute there are two sides to the story and that the truth lays somewhere in the middle and being that he has relationships with both parties, Rutten’s view is a bipartisan one.

According to Bas, contrary to what Alistair is telling everyone, it was him and Not Golden Glory who are to blame for the situation and that the split came because Overeem has no loyalty to the people who were behind him through the good and bad times in his career.

“It’s a money thing. He simply doesn’t want to pay the people who made him. When he lost three fights in a row…well, like pretty much five, I mean, he lost, won, lost three times in a row, won, and lost again…and nobody wanted to have him. But his management kept pushing and using the power that they have because they have other great fighters. Like, for example [they would say],’If you want Semmy Schilt to fight, then you have to take Alistair as well.’ It’s funny how fighters think,” Rutten explains. “When it goes bad with them, their team is everything to them, and they love their team. In interviews after they win a fight, they say: “I owe everything to my team”. Then when the management starts to put great fights together for them, directing their careers and the fighter gets better and better, some of them simply can’t handle it, and it gets to their head.”

Rutten says he predicted that bad things were coming when he heard Overeem bragging about his K-1 title.

“I had a bad feeling already when he called himself, after he won the K-1 Grand Prix, ‘a legend.‘ He actually said in an interview right after he won, ‘I am a legend now.’ I don’t think a fighter can ever make that comment about himself. And talking about the Grand Prix, let’s face it, he had a great deal of luck as well there,” Bas says. “He fought Peter Aerts who had a WAR with Semmy Schilt [previously that night] and was completely banged up, and then he fought [Gokhan] Saki, who had a broken arm AND hand, in the finals! At that moment when you win, you should say, ‘I’m very happy with the result, the stars were in line for me tonight, I also got a little bit of luck.’ Because everybody is going to say that about you anyway, you might as well simply say it yourself to keep the people respecting you, but NOT, ‘I’m a legend.’”

Bas says that without his trainers and management team at GG, Overeem may never have achieved the level of success that he did and that he had no problem with his deal with them until the seven figure contracts came.

“I KNOW what Golden Glory did for him. He couldn’t punch or kick when he came to them, and I mean, HE COULDN’T PUNCH OR KICK! Some fighters get big and then forget who was fighting for them when they were losing. Two months ago, he wanted to make a belt for the Golden Glory team with, ‘FOR CHAMPION MANAGEMENT,’ engraved on it. Those were HIS words after they made this huge [UFC] contract for him, and now he says they are morons? He used them to negotiate the best deal and when they did it, now suddenly they are morons? Explain that to me. It’s unreal. Also, a few months ago, when they started to get close to a good deal with the UFC, he realized that he could make a lot of money. The first thing he did was go to Cor Hemmers, his striking coach, and tried to renegotiate the 10% trainer’s fee. You have to understand, [a deal like Alistair’s UFC contract] is a dream for trainers, because there is a possibility that they create, with the help from management of course, a fighter who can make some REAL money for them. Because let’s face it, most trainers don’t live in a huge house, don’t drive a big car, they do it for the love of the fighter they train. They put their whole heart and soul in there.”

Report: Overeem Sues Former Management for Unspecified Sum; Claims Golden Glory Stiffed Him Over $150,000


(Cor Hemmers and Bas Boon minutes before they eyeballed their share of Alistair’s bag of K-1 purse money, you know, back when he still got it.)

TMZ is reporting that Alistair Overeem filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court today against Golden Glory — the management team he recently split from that handled his business affairs, not the fight team they are affiliated with.


(Cor Hemmers and Bas Boon minutes before they eyeballed their share of Alistair’s bag of K-1 purse money, you know, back when he still got it.)

TMZ is reporting that Alistair Overeem filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court today against Golden Glory — the management team he recently split from that handled his business affairs, not the fight team they are affiliated with.

The complaint states that Bas Boon & Co held back approximately $151,000 US from the former Strikeforce heavyweight champ, including a hefty signing bonus that he got when he upped with the UFC.

An interesting tidbit is that “The Reem” was paying them nearly double what other managers make for their services. Typically, agents take anywhere between 10-20 percent of a fighters purse, but according to court documents, GG skimmed a whopping 35 percent off the top of each of Overeem’s checks before “The Demolition Man” even paid taxes on the sum. There’s a chance that the amount also included the portion paid out to his Golden Glory trainers, but such was not clarified in the papers that were filed today.

He is also asking the court to void the remaining contract he has with the Dutch-based management group. The fact that he has a lucrative fight with Brock Lesnar at UFC 141 on December 30 is likely the main impetus for him filing now, before he has to cut them a check for the bout.

Video: Alistair Overeem Joins Xtreme Couture and Details Reasons for Split With Golden Glory on ‘The Reem’ Ep. 07

Alistair Overeem was on MMAFighting.com’s The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani Monday afternoon and the former Strikeforce heavyweight fighter, who many speculated would be joining King’s MMA in Huntington Beach, Calif. after splitting with Golden Glory in the summer, revealed that he has instead decided to relocate to Las Vegas, Nev. where he will train at Xtreme Couture.

Although he wouldn’t reveal too much about the change in camps on the show, “The Demolition Man” gave more details of his decision to train stateside and what was behind his split with Bas Boon and company in the following episode of The Reem documentary, which was released minutes ago.

Check it out after the jump.

Alistair Overeem was on MMAFighting.com’s The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani Monday afternoon and the former Strikeforce heavyweight fighter, who many speculated would be joining King’s MMA in Huntington Beach, Calif. after splitting with Golden Glory in the summer, revealed that he has instead decided to relocate to Las Vegas, Nev. where he will train at Xtreme Couture.

Although he wouldn’t reveal too much about the change in camps on the show, “The Demolition Man” gave more details of his decision to train stateside and what was behind his split with Bas Boon and company in the following episode of The Reem documentary, which was released minutes ago.


(Video courtesy of Vimeo/TheReem)

It’s curious that Alistair would choose Xtreme Couture when the camp has an obvious deficiency in top-tier heavyweight training partners for him to work with save for Ray Sefo and sometimes heavyweight Randy Couture. XC is known for its wrestling pedigree, which Overeem has stated he would like to focus more intently on, so in that sense, the choice makes sense.

If you’ve watched the video, it’s an unfortunate situation that saw Alistair break ties with his management and trainers, but business is business and sometimes doing what’s best for one’s career isn’t what’s best for one’s friendships.

It will be interesting to see what changes to his game he displays in his upcoming UFC 141 fight with Brock Lesnar. Considering Randy has both trained with and fought Brock, he should be able to offer some first-hand insight on him.

Einemo Headed Back to UFC; Bahadurzada Could Soon Follow According Golden Glory Head Bas Boon


(The team during easier times.)

According to Golden Glory head Bas Boon, fences have been mended between the UFC and his management group and fight team — so much so that the promotion is bringing back heavyweight John Olav Einemo and is in discussions to sign K-1 standout Siyar Bahadurzada as well.

“John Olaf Einemo is now back with the UFC and Siyar Bahadurzada just got offered a UFC contract,” Boon wrote in an email received by CagePotato earlier today.

The email went on to state that Golden Glory’s relationship with the UFC is good and that contrary to media speculation, neither side is guilty of any wrongdoing during the recent negotiations to sign former Golden Glory star Alistair Overeem to a contract with the Las Vegas-based promotion.

“I want to make the following statement to clear up any speculation.The UFC did nothing wrong and neither did Golden Glory management – when signing up Alistair Overeem with the UFC. It is public knowledge how the UFC does business,” Boon explained. “ALL correspondence between the UFC and Golden Glory was also shared/CC’d to Alistair Overeem who finally made a decision to sign the agreements. There will be a lot of rumors like in thet recent past when 4 Golden Glory fighters were released from the UFC and Strikeforce and that was the so-called end of GG’s relationship with the UFC. Not long after this rumor Golden Glory made a mega deal with Alistair Overeem signing with the UFC.”


(The team during easier times.)

According to Golden Glory head Bas Boon, fences have been mended between the UFC and his management group and fight team — so much so that the promotion is bringing back heavyweight John Olav Einemo and is in discussions to sign K-1 standout Siyar Bahadurzada as well.

“John Olaf Einemo is now back with the UFC and Siyar Bahadurzada just got offered a UFC contract,” Boon wrote in an email received by CagePotato earlier today.

The email went on to state that Golden Glory’s relationship with the UFC is good and that contrary to media speculation, neither side is guilty of any wrongdoing during the recent negotiations to sign former Golden Glory star Alistair Overeem to a contract with the Las Vegas-based promotion.

“I want to make the following statement to clear up any speculation.The UFC did nothing wrong and neither did Golden Glory management – when signing up Alistair Overeem with the UFC. It is public knowledge how the UFC does business,” Boon explained. “ALL correspondence between the UFC and Golden Glory was also shared/CC’d to Alistair Overeem who finally made a decision to sign the agreements. There will be a lot of rumors like in thet recent past when 4 Golden Glory fighters were released from the UFC and Strikeforce and that was the so-called end of GG’s relationship with the UFC. Not long after this rumor Golden Glory made a mega deal with Alistair Overeem signing with the UFC.”

Boon says that the current dismal state of MMA in Japan and Golden Glory’s home base in Holland is making it difficult for fighters to carve out a living outside of North America, which is likely why they decided to forgo the addition of a clause in Overeem’s UFC contract to ensure that he could continue to compete for K-1. Another fact that likely played into that decision was that “The Demolition Man” still hasn’t been paid for winning the K-1 World Heavyweight Grand Prix last year.

“These are difficult times in the fighting industry; we are still waiting for payment of FEG as Alistair said in the press and the future of FEG is still unclear. There is a Dutch law called bibop in the Netherlands which makes promoting events there extremely difficult.”

Boon, who revealed after the sudden firings of his fighters from Strikeforce and the UFC,that he was working with Strikeforce, K-1 and DREAM to form a partnership between the three promotions prior to the purchase of SF by Zuffa says that there is progress in Japan, but points out that he can’t say what just yet.

“There is also some really good news coming soon about the situation in Japan and I really want to let everybody know the details, but I have signed multiple non-disclosure agreements and I have to wait,” Boon explained.

Hopefully it’s that they have a suitable financial backer to revive JMMA, which has been on life support the past few years. Fighters and fans need another viable MMA option outside of the UFC umbrella.

Alistair Overeem Splits With Golden Glory, Possibly More to Follow

Filed under: UFC, K1, News, JapanEnding a relationship that dates back to the beginning of his career, former Strikeforce heavyweight champion, DREAM interim heavyweight champion and 2010 K-1 World GP champion Alistair Overeem announced on Wednesday th…

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Ending a relationship that dates back to the beginning of his career, former Strikeforce heavyweight champion, DREAM interim heavyweight champion and 2010 K-1 World GP champion Alistair Overeem announced on Wednesday that he has left the Golden Glory fight team.

Overeem chose not to give specific details on the reason behind the move but cited “a breach of trust” and continued to say that there was, “no turning back and no way to continue a positive, working relationship.”

In July of this year, Overeem was cut from Strikeforce due to a disagreement regarding payment methods between Golden Glory and Zuffa, but the Dutch heavyweight finally resigned with Zuffa earlier this month to make his UFC debut and to meet former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar on Dec. 30.

The complete statements from Overeem and Golden Glory co-owner Bas Boon are after the break.

Alistair Overeem released the following statement via Twitter:

“I would like to make a statement regarding the recent news of the separation from my long-time management Golden Glory. As with any relationship, there are good times and bad times – you have your common ground and your differences. As with any relationship, you have trust. When differences lead to a breach of trust, there’s no turning back and no way to continue a positive, working relationship. I don’t air my dirty laundry. I would appreciate the respect regarding my privacy to not disclose any further details on this matter.

Again, I would like to thank team Golden Glory for all the years we worked together and wish them success for the future.”

Overeem, the favorite to win the troubled Strikeforce Heavyweight GP, withdrew from the tournament in July due to injury and was cut from the promotion later in the month due to a dispute between Golden Glory and Zuffa. Former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Marloes Coenen, Alistair’s brother Valentijn Overeem and former UFC heavyweight John Olav Einemo were also cut from Zuffa promotions as a result of the rift between Zuffa and Golden Glory.

With Overeem only stating that “a breach of trust” was the reason for his departure, details behind the split are up for speculation and many people may be quick to point the finger at the recent issues between Golden Glory and Zuffa. Bas Boon, co-owner of Golden Glory and Overeem’s former manager, released the following statement to make it clear that this is not the case.

“The UFC is not wrong!

I want to make the following statement to clear up any speculation.

The UFC did nothing wrong and neither did Golden Glory management when signing up Alistair Overeem with the UFC. It is public knowledge how the UFC does business. The fighters sign their own contracts and agreements. If journalists have any questions regarding Alistair Overeem’s statement about G.G please contact the UFC for any further questions. ALL correspondence between the UFC and Golden Glory was also shared/CC’d to Alistair Overeem, who finally made a decision to sign the agreements.

These are difficult times in the fighting industry. We are still waiting for payment of FEG, as Alistair said in the press, and the future of FEG is still unclear. There is a Dutch law called bibop in the Netherlands which makes promoting events there extremely difficult. There will be a lot of rumors like in the recent past when 4 G.G fighters were released from the UFC and Strikeforce and that was the so called end of G.G relationship with the UFC.

Not long after this rumor, Golden Glory made a mega-deal with Alistair Overeem signing with the UFC. John Olaf Einemo is now back with the UFC and Siyar Bahadurzada just got offered a UFC contract.

There is also some really good news coming soon about the situation in Japan and I really want to let everybody know the details – but I have signed multiple NDAs (non-disclosure argreements) and I have to wait before publicly elaborating further.”

While we can only guess until either side gives a definitive answer, due to Boon’s hints it seems that the reason behind the split is the money owed by K-1.

Alistair Overeem, Peter Aerts, Jerome Le Banner, Ray Sefo and a host of other fighters are owed an enormous sum of money by the struggling kickboxing promotion and like most involved, Golden Glory have reportedly been unable to make any progress towards receiving payment.

It has long been rumored that Golden Glory was getting set to take over the K-1, possibly as partial payment for debts, but with the transfer of K-1 rights to real estate company Barbizon that talk has gone cold. Still, given that Boon is talking non-disclosure agreements in Japan, there may be something in the works.

Alistair Overeem may not be the only athlete to leave the vaunted Golden Glory team as Liverkick.com also reports that Gokhan Saki may also be splitting. The Turkish-Dutch K-1 star, who has recently talked of making a move into MMA, is apparently unhappy the the Golden Glory team and has been seeking an out for his contract for some time.

It is also possible that Errol Zimmerman, a close friend of Saki, is leaving Golden Glory as 2011 K-1 Final 16 entrant Hedsey Gerges revealed that he is set to face Zimmerman in Nanjing. Due to a large amount of money owed, K-1 and Golden Glory do not currently have a working relationship so if the match is indeed set, Zimmerman may have left the team. Neither Golden Glory nor K-1 promoter FEG have confirmed the match.

 

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Exclusive: Alistair Overeem Announces Split From Golden Glory; Bas Boon Responds to Situation

Former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem made a shocking announcement via Twitter today that he has decided to part ways with his longtime team and management at Golden Glory, citing “differences that [led] to a breach of trust” as the cause of the split. Although he didn’t mention any one incident, it’s likely that the recent rift between Golden Glory and Zuffa that saw Overeem and a handful of his teammates including former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Marloes Coenen and former UFC heavyweight John Olaf Einemo released within a week of one another was at least part of the reason for his departure from the Dutch kickboxing-based team.

“I would like to make a statement regarding the recent news of the separation from my long-time management Golden Glory. As with any relationship, there are good times and bad times – you have your common ground and your differences. As with any relationship, you have trust,” Overeem wrote. “When differences lead to a breach of trust, there’s no turning back and no way to continue a positive, working relationship. I don’t air my dirty laundry. I would appreciate the respect regarding my privacy to not disclose any further details on this matter. Again, I would like to thank team Golden Glory for all the years we worked together and wish them success for the future.”

Former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem made a shocking announcement via Twitter today that he has decided to part ways with his longtime team and management at Golden Glory, citing “differences that [led] to a breach of trust” as the cause of the split. Although he didn’t mention any one incident, it’s likely that the recent rift between Golden Glory and Zuffa that saw Overeem and a handful of his teammates including former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Marloes Coenen and former UFC heavyweight John Olaf Einemo released within a week of one another was at least part of the reason for his departure from the Dutch kickboxing-based team.

“I would like to make a statement regarding the recent news of the separation from my long-time management Golden Glory. As with any relationship, there are good times and bad times – you have your common ground and your differences. As with any relationship, you have trust,” Overeem wrote. “When differences lead to a breach of trust, there’s no turning back and no way to continue a positive, working relationship. I don’t air my dirty laundry. I would appreciate the respect regarding my privacy to not disclose any further details on this matter. Again, I would like to thank team Golden Glory for all the years we worked together and wish them success for the future.”

“The Demolition Man,” who taped a cameo appearance in California recently for LMFAO’s latest video has been stateside for the past few weeks. In a recent interview he told MiddleEasy that he was visiting a number of U.S. cities and was deciding whether or not a move to New York, Hollywood or Miami was in the cards. The problem with joining a team like Kings MMA and American Kickboxing Academy is that past and potential future opponents like Fabricio Werdum and Daniel Cormier train at those respective California-based facilities. With the recent departure of Junior dos Santos, Black House could be a good fit as would American Top Team, considering its lack of heavyweight contenders he may one day have to face. Either gym would make sense as long as he has enough suitable training partners his size at one of the locations.

When contacted for comment prior to the release of the statement by Overeem after we received word earlier this morning that the announcement was imminent, Golden Glory head,Bas Boon, who was taken aback by the news that his longtime protegee was moving on, had the following to say about the situation:

“We regret that after 12 years of working together and friendship has come to an end. I can not really comment on any details as I do not have them myself yet. We don’t air our dirty laundry,” Boon responded via email. “There is a management contract in place and as long as this is honored we are fine with the decision. We wish Alistair much success in his further career.”