Tag: Golden Glory

Golden Glory Responds to Alistair Overeem’s Lawsuit

Filed under: UFC, NewsAlistair Overeem’s former management team has thrown a counterpunch at the current UFC fighter, alleging that he owes them money from their work and slamming his lawsuit as “scurrilous.”

A statement released to MMA Fighting by R…

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Alistair Overeem‘s former management team has thrown a counterpunch at the current UFC fighter, alleging that he owes them money from their work and slamming his lawsuit as “scurrilous.”

A statement released to MMA Fighting by Roderick J. Lindblom, legal counsel for Knock Out Investments (KOI) and Golden Glory — Overeem’s former management team — claims that Overeem filed his lawsuit as a preemptive action after KOI informed him of numerous violations of their deal, including his failure to pay commissions for past fights and endorsement deals.

“KOI and Golden Glory are respected organizations committed to securing the best fight deals and training for their team of fighters,” the statement read. “Mr. Overeem’s continued suggestions to the contrary are scurrilous and will be vigorously defended in the proper forum.”

On Thursday, MMA Fighting also obtained a copy of Overeem’s lawsuit, which was filed in California Superior Court. The 10-page complaint characterizes his management contract, which was signed in July 2007 and scheduled to run for five years, as “exceedingly one-sided,” and claims that KOI and Golden Glory “failed to provide the required management services and have failed to pay Overeem monies that are now due and owing.”

Among the breaches alleged by Overeem is failure to review, properly negotiate and advise him of his fight contracts, pressuring him to sign contracts that were not always in his best interest, failing to look after his best interests, and failure to remit payments of fight purses and other payments, among others.

He also charges that they engaged in deceptive practices to conceal income from him. By virtue of their actions, he alleges that he is owed over $151,000. He is also asking the court to terminate his management deal and determine any future rights of compensation.

Lindblom’s statement says the management team is in receipt of his lawsuit and currently assessing all available defenses and counterclaims.

“Alistair Overeem is a striker — he wants to throw the first punch. But this misguided decision to file a lawsuit as a preemptive strike leaves Mr. Overeem vulnerable in ways our clients wished to avoid,” the statement closes out.

 

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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.

Glory Tourney Postponed Until December; First Round to Include Schilt, Kharitonov, Bahadurzada and Zimmerman

United Glory announced today that it will be postponing its planned October “World Series” event until December and that the first show of the 2011-2012 kickboxing and MMA tournament, which will happen in Moscow, will feature Golden Glory standouts Semmy Schilt, Sergei Kharitonov, Siyar Bahadurzada and Errol Zimmerman.

United Glory announced today that it will be postponing its planned October “World Series” event until December and that the first show of the 2011-2012 kickboxing and MMA tournament, which will happen in Moscow, will feature Golden Glory standouts Semmy Schilt, Sergei Kharitonov, Siyar Bahadurzada and Errol Zimmerman.

Originally, United Glory had planned to have Alistair Overeem headline the event, but the former Strikeforce heavyweight champ recently signed an exclusive contract with the UFC and split with Golden Glory’s management team, leaving them scrambling to find a suitable replacement for “The Demolition Man,” which they did with Schilt. A multi-time K-1 champion, “Hightower” is a huge draw in Europe, regardless of who he fights. Hopefully, they’ll bring in a suitable opponent to face him.

We’ll have more on the match-ups for the event as they’re announced.

 

 

 

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.

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.”