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.
(A twist to the story is that they are actually brothers who used to be siamese twins.)
The UFC and FOX held a conference call today with UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC President Dana White, FOX Sports Media Group Chairman David Hill, FOX Sports Co-President Eric Shanks and FUELTV General Manager George Greenberg for members of the media who were unable to attend today’s UFC on Fox 1 pre-fight press conference in Los Angeles. Besides the big announcement that prelim fights will soon be moving over to FuelTV from Facebook, there were a few other interesting nuggets that came out of the call.
Check out the quick quotes after the jump.
(A twist to the story is that they are actually brothers who used to be siamese twins.)
The UFC and FOX held a conference call today with UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC President Dana White, FOX Sports Media Group Chairman David Hill, FOX Sports Co-President Eric Shanks and FUELTV General Manager George Greenberg for members of the media who were unable to attend today’s UFC on Fox 1 pre-fight press conference in Los Angeles. Besides the big announcement that prelim fights will soon be moving over to FuelTV from Facebook, there were a few other interesting nuggets that came out of the call.
Check out the quick quotes below.
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Dana White:
“These guys are the best at what they do. David Hill has revolutionized sports. We’d be crazy not to want FOX’s input (on production and the broadcast).”
“No matter what, you know we’re going to deliver. We’re on FOX – the biggest, baddest network on the planet. We couldn’t ask for anything more. This is a dream come true.”
“This is without a doubt the biggest fight in UFC history. This thing started as a small fringe sport and has grown to what it is today. This Saturday night as we step out onto FOX, millions of people will see UFC who’ve never watched before. As we take this step forward into what we call ‘mainstream,’ we were much more fortunate in that we were able to hand pick a fight that we wanted to put on FOX. If I had to do it all over again, this is still the fight I’d pick to put on network television.”
Cain Velasquez:
“From both of us, we have exciting fighting styles. We don’t go out there and put on boring fights. We’re both going to go forward. That’s what fans are going to see, that’s what people who haven’t seen this before are going to see on Saturday.”
“I want to represent hardworking people. Whether in training or in the fight, it’s good to know I have people supporting me and it makes me work harder and train harder. I always want to go out there and represent them well. I appreciate the support from the Mexican fans and fans all over.”
Junior dos Santos:
“I feel really excited, but no pressure. It’s the same pressure I felt in my last fight. This is huge for me and I want to enjoy it and I will.”
“Cain has amazing stamina. I think in this case, Cain Velasquez is the number one heavyweight now. I want to change this on Saturday. It’s going to be a great fight and a war. I think a lot of people are going to be rooting for him on Saturday night, but I know I’ll have a lot of people rooting for me around the world. I’ll use that energy on Saturday night”
“I will give my best to make this belt a Brazilian belt. I’m ready to go five rounds, but I think this fight finishes before.”
David Hill:
“You never rattle the cages of the ratings gods, but we expect to be pleasantly surprised on Sunday morning.”
“We’re obviously stoked [to have this event on FOX]. We’re all huge boxing fans and I think with the death of Joe Frazier, it made people realize that everyone remembers what a great boxer and competitor he was, and the will to win Joe Frazier had. Everyone started talking about the golden days of boxing and what happened to it. To be coming back on primetime with a fight like this, it’s kinda of like the dawn of a new era. It’s like a phoenix coming from the ashes.”
“What boxing was to my generation, UFC is to my son’s. By the end of these seven years, UFC will be mainstream.”
Eric Shanks:
“The day that we signed the deal – I didn’t know it at the time – but I found out that every person at FOX is a UFC fan. People were high-fiving me at the office. That place hasn’t been more pumped since we signed the deal.”
“It’s a coming out party for UFC on FOX (on Saturday) and it’s a coming out party for FUEL.”
George Greenberg:
“In general, about 25 percent of [FuelTV’s] programming pie will be dedicated to UFC. Over 2,000 hours of UFC programs. We’ll have at least 100 hours of live programming. We get all the shoulder programming, whether it’s ‘Primetime,’ ‘Countdown,’ ‘Best of,’ and we have access to the PRIDE library.”
“As we expose a brand new audience to the MMA world, this thing is going to explode. It’s going to be represented in primetime, on late night, on the weekends. It will be the wind in our sails for sure.”
Proving the belief that if you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a couple million eggs, Lorenzo Fertitta gave full disclosure as to exactly what the UFC’s monumental debut on Fox would be costing Zuffa in a recent interview with Sports Business Journal:
When we were on Spike TV, that was a launching pad. We look at Fox as a bigger and better platform that could elevate the brand. We’re flat out going to lose money on this fight. But that’s the investment we’re making. Those are the steps we’ve got to take to make Cain and Junior pay-per-view stars and lift up the whole thing. Maybe we think a little funny here, but that’s well worth forgoing $16 million. Take that out over the next 10 years and we get a healthy return.
Now, though it may seem like pocket change to Zuffa, Dana White has stated that he is incredibly nervous leading into the event, mainly due to this whole “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu” thing, which he feels some of the more casual fans out there may have a hard time dealing with:
(There can only be one Baldfather around here.)
Proving the belief that if you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a couple million eggs, Lorenzo Fertitta gave full disclosure as to exactly what the UFC’s monumental debut on Fox would be costing Zuffa in a recent interview with Sports Business Journal:
When we were on Spike TV, that was a launching pad. We look at Fox as a bigger and better platform that could elevate the brand. We’re flat out going to lose money on this fight. But that’s the investment we’re making. Those are the steps we’ve got to take to make Cain and Junior pay-per-view stars and lift up the whole thing. Maybe we think a little funny here, but that’s well worth forgoing $16 million. Take that out over the next 10 years and we get a healthy return.
Now, though it may seem like pocket change to Zuffa, Dana White has stated that he is incredibly nervous leading into the event, mainly due to this whole “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu” thing, which he feels some of the more casual fans out there may have a hard time dealing with:
I’m nervous. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve been nervous. I don’t get nervous anymore. I get excited and I get pumped up for fights. But you know, I’m nervous for this fight. I’m genuinely nervous like I was at UFC 30 when we did our first one … But the way that I approached this whole coming-out party on Fox is, we live in this little bubble. I live in a world of armbars and rear-naked chokes and triangle chokes and ground-and-pound and all that stuff, but there’s millions and millions of people who have never even heard of any of that and don’t know anything about the UFC. As big as the UFC may seem, it’s not. We’re so far from mainstream still, and now we’ve been given the opportunity to do it. That’s why Saturday is so important. It feels good and I’m excited, yeah, but I’m nervous, man. I’m excited and I’m nervous, and I don’t like to be nervous.
Fret not Dana, we have you covered on that front. And considering who the main event players are, we sincerely doubt that BJJ will play a huge role in the outcome of the fight. But it’s hard to argue with DW, because no matter which way you slice it, more than just a truckload of cash is on the line come Saturday night. We’ve already laid out the keys to success for the UFC’s major network debut, but it’s a bit distressing to think that the thing possibly hindering mixed martial arts from mainstream acceptance is not the whole “extreme violence” factor, but a tactical element of the sport itself. So the question is, how do we get the common folk excited for a sport as abrasive and multi-faceted as MMA? Figure this shit out will you, Potato Nation?
(What I want to know is, how does he reach his instruments in his pouch?)
A group of Australian physicians that treated a 41-year-old Queensland man who suffered a stroke due to an injury he purportedly suffered during a recreational grappling class have published an article in a medical journal calling for the implementation of increased safety measures, including stricter governance of the sport’s trainers in the country.
In a report prepared by attending physicians Dr Michael Slowey, Dr Graeme Maw, and Dr Jeremy Furyk for Emergency Medicine Australasia — the journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine — they state that the victim originally thought he had suffered mild to moderate neck strain, but was later diagnosed with a vertebral tear that caused the stroke.
“This case highlights the risks posed by participation in sports, such as MMA, both in competition and in training,” Dr Slowey is quoted as saying. “People need to be aware of the real risk of permanent neurological damage. Although grappling is permitted in MMA, prevention of this form of injury is clearly a major problem. In this case, the patient has been advised to refrain from further participation in any form of martial arts.”
The Aussie group maintains that they aren’t calling for a ban on MMA or training, but they do ask that the government get involved in regulating the certification of trainers who teach at gyms and dojos where aspiring fighters or recreational MMA hobbyists train before incidents like this become more common.
“At the end of the day no matter what the sport is, I don’t think doctors are going to get much chance of changing the rules,” he says. “But if we make people aware of the risks then the governing bodies can take things into consideration.”
(What I want to know is, how does he reach his instruments in his pouch?)
A group of Australian physicians that treated a 41-year-old Queensland man who suffered a stroke due to an injury he purportedly suffered during a recreational grappling class have published an article in a medical journal calling for the implementation of increased safety measures, including stricter governance of the sport’s trainers in the country.
In a report prepared by attending physicians Dr Michael Slowey, Dr Graeme Maw, and Dr Jeremy Furyk for Emergency Medicine Australasia — the journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine — they state that the victim originally thought he had suffered mild to moderate neck strain, but was later diagnosed with a vertebral tear that caused the stroke.
“This case highlights the risks posed by participation in sports, such as MMA, both in competition and in training,” Dr Slowey is quoted as saying. “People need to be aware of the real risk of permanent neurological damage. Although grappling is permitted in MMA, prevention of this form of injury is clearly a major problem. In this case, the patient has been advised to refrain from further participation in any form of martial arts.”
The Aussie group maintains that they aren’t calling for a ban on MMA or training, but they do ask that the government get involved in regulating the certification of trainers who teach at gyms and dojos where aspiring fighters or recreational MMA hobbyists train before incidents like this become more common.
“At the end of the day no matter what the sport is, I don’t think doctors are going to get much chance of changing the rules,” he says. “But if we make people aware of the risks then the governing bodies can take things into consideration.”
Besides tighter guidelines for MMA gyms, the trio is also seeking stricter controls similar to boxing, including independent accreditation of officials, records kept of fighters’ suspensions and injuries and licensing of fight promoters.
“You do that and you will have an appropriately run, much safer sport for everyone,” President of the Martial Arts Industry Association (MAIA) Walt Missingham says.
“With a broader range of styles and rules comes a wider range of injuries,” Dr Slowey explains. “Most injuries in MMA are facial lacerations, upper limb injuries and concussions.The documented injury rate is 23.6 per 100 fight participations, with severe concussion rates of 15.4 per 1000 athlete exposures, or 3% of all fights.”
They’ve definitely done their homework and they have a point, since just about anyone, regardless of whether or not they are qualified to teach can rent a storefront, put “MMA” on the door and begin selling memberships to unsuspecting customers. At the very least, for insurance purposes gym owners should have to ensure that they have an employee who is certified in CPR and first aid on hand whenever the doors are open. Although certification won’t stop freak injuries like this from happening, having a group to investigate the cause of the mishap and offer suggestions or levy sanctions such as license suspensions for the offending parties would go a long way at preventing them.
I’ve been seriously injured in training due to the negligence (see stupidity) of a training partner and it definitely could have been prevented if the idiot who did it was educated by a competent trainer. That’s not to say that the trainer didn’t have the creds to teach, he simply failed to run through the rules of the gym and what was allowed during rolling and sparring. I was lucky that my injury healed up for the most part. Some aren’t so lucky.
Alistair Overeem is preparing for his first fight in the UFC, but he’s reportedly preparing for a legal fight as well.
According to TMZ, the decorated mixed martial artist who will debut in the Octagon against Brock Lesnar on Dec. 30 has filed a lawsuit against his management team for their alleged refusal to pay him money owed from their deal.
It’s no small amount, as the lawsuit alleges that they’re holding out on paying him more than $151,000 he’s owed. He’s also seeking a court order to break his management contract.
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Overeem revealed that he had left his longtime home, Golden Glory, due to a “major breach of trust,” moving his training camp to Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. Overeem also called Golden Glory “harmful management” in his interview, suggesting that he was taken advantage of.
The lawsuit claims that Overeem agreed to give managers 35 percent of his pre-tax earnings. You may recall that in July, the UFC parted ways with most of the Golden Glory fighters they had under contract, with UFC president Dana White alleging that they insisted on business practices that made it impossible to work with them. Among them was an insistence on the UFC directly paying Golden Glory rather than its fighters, as is required by most state athletic commissions.
“We don’t work that way,” White said then. “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.”
Overeem’s complaint suggests that Golden Glory was directly paid to some degree, as part of his missing income includes a bonus he claims he was due after signing with the UFC.
Overeem was part of the Golden Glory stable for more than a decade, winning heavyweight championships in Strikeforce and DREAM as well as the K-1 World Grand Prix while fighting under their banner. His first time away from them will come in Las Vegas, in the main event at UFC 141.
A Golden Glory official did not immediately return a message from MMA Fighting seeking comment on the lawsuit, but later said a statement would be forthcoming.
Alistair Overeem is preparing for his first fight in the UFC, but he’s reportedly preparing for a legal fight as well.
According to TMZ, the decorated mixed martial artist who will debut in the Octagon against Brock Lesnar on Dec. 30 has filed a lawsuit against his management team for their alleged refusal to pay him money owed from their deal.
It’s no small amount, as the lawsuit alleges that they’re holding out on paying him more than $151,000 he’s owed. He’s also seeking a court order to break his management contract.
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Overeem revealed that he had left his longtime home, Golden Glory, due to a “major breach of trust,” moving his training camp to Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. Overeem also called Golden Glory “harmful management” in his interview, suggesting that he was taken advantage of.
The lawsuit claims that Overeem agreed to give managers 35 percent of his pre-tax earnings. You may recall that in July, the UFC parted ways with most of the Golden Glory fighters they had under contract, with UFC president Dana White alleging that they insisted on business practices that made it impossible to work with them. Among them was an insistence on the UFC directly paying Golden Glory rather than its fighters, as is required by most state athletic commissions.
“We don’t work that way,” White said then. “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.”
Overeem’s complaint suggests that Golden Glory was directly paid to some degree, as part of his missing income includes a bonus he claims he was due after signing with the UFC.
Overeem was part of the Golden Glory stable for more than a decade, winning heavyweight championships in Strikeforce and DREAM as well as the K-1 World Grand Prix while fighting under their banner. His first time away from them will come in Las Vegas, in the main event at UFC 141.
A Golden Glory official did not immediately return a message from MMA Fighting seeking comment on the lawsuit, but later said a statement would be forthcoming.
Filed under: UFC, News, UFC on FOXSince signing a deal to bring programming to FOX networks for seven years starting in 2012, UFC president Dana White has repeatedly said that if you’re an MMA fan, you’re going to want to make sure you have access to t…
Since signing a deal to bring programming to FOX networks for seven years starting in 2012, UFC president Dana White has repeatedly said that if you’re an MMA fan, you’re going to want to make sure you have access to the FUEL cable station. Until now though, the scope of FUEL’s devotion to the UFC has been somewhat unclear.
No longer. On a Wednesday teleconference featuring executives of both FOX Sports and the UFC, it was revealed that FUEL will broadcast over 2,000 hours of UFC programming in 2012, devoting about 25 percent of their entire schedule to all things octagon.
It was just one of several details released regarding the future plans between the new partners. Among the other major revelations is that starting in January, every UFC fight that takes place anywhere around the world will be televised. In the recent past, most undercard fights have only been available online on Facebook.com.
Using the multiple platforms available, the UFC plans to broadcast most live preliminaries on FUEL before the main card begins on pay-per-view, FOX or FX, depending on the specific event. Under the terms of their deal, in 2012, FOX will broadcast four events while FX will host six.
While Saturday night’s UFC on FOX: Velasquez vs. dos Santos event will only be one hour, future network television broadcasts will likely increase and feature more than one fight, according to FOX Sports co-president Eric Shanks, who said the network is leaning towards 90-minute blocks and two or three fights per broadcast.
“It’s going to be an incredible night, and we just want to make sure we have the time to tell the story about this [Velasquez vs. dos Santos] fight, but going forward you can look forward to longer fight nights on FOX,” he said.
White said that he was happy with the time slot and promotion, and noted that complaints about only one fight airing on Saturday night should be muted by promise of the future exposure on multiple platforms.
“We couldn’t ask for anything more,” he said. “This is like a dream come true. No matter how many fights it is, it’s a damn good thing.”
While the FOX fights will no doubt gain UFC their biggest audiences and the move to FX is expected to inject new life into The Ultimate Fighter, it seems clear that UFC executives are just as excited about being the anchor programming for FUEL. According to last estimates provided by TV By the Numbers, FUEL is currently available in just over 32 million households, less than a third the number of households that can watch FX. Yet the hope amongst both sides is that UFC programming will help the channel grow and gain wider clearance.
Aside from broadcasting prelim fights, FUEL will air all UFC shoulder programming including Countdown, Primetime, Unleashed, Best of PRIDE, The Ultimate Insider and more.
Asked if the proliferation of UFC programming on the channel would eventually result in it being rebranded as the “UFC channel,” White said he was pulling for the possibility. FOX Sports Media Group chairman David Hill said that while FUEL’s target demographic would change slightly with the explosion of UFC programming, it would maintain its current name.
Since signing a deal to bring programming to FOX networks for seven years starting in 2012,