Golden Glory manager Bas Boon released a statement on Thursday regarding the releases of Golden Glory fighters Alistair Overeem, Marloes Coenen, Valentijn Overeem and Jon Olav Einemo, shifting some of the blame to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker and the business deals they put in place prior to Zuffa purchasing the organization.
Boon also clarified that Golden Glory is willing to go along with the UFC’s insistence on paying the fighters directly, despite Dana White saying last week that it was a point of contention in negotiations.
However, it was his comments on Alistair Overeem that raised some eyebrows, as Boon said he would be willing to sign an exclusive contract with the UFC. Now, he’s further clarified their stance with Overeem in an interview with MMAJunkie.com.
“What I want to accomplish is that we all sit at the table, find a deal, and that Alistair will fight the top three in the UFC,” Boon said. “I’m not going to ask for crazy things.”
The main thing for Golden Glory and Overeem is to be compensated for what would be giving up on opportunities in kickboxing and in Japan. Said Boon, “It should be logical that it’s worth some kind of money.”
Boon also revealed another tidbit about Overeem’s status, as despite his release Overeem is still in a matching period with Zuffa. Should he receive an offer elsewhere, the UFC would be able to match that. Because of that, Boon remains hopeful something can get done.
“We are ready, man,” he said. “We regret what happened, and people had their reasons, and there was a communication error. I was two weeks in the hospital and there was a lot of mess. It doesn’t make any sense to me to start a war with the UFC.”
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Penick’s Analysis: It certainly appears that they’re trying to make nice after attempting to pull a power play in negotiations, and Boon is handling the PR on this pretty well by pointing to miscommunication and trying to restart talks to bring Overeem to the UFC. If ultimately it brings Overeem into the UFC, then that will be a good thing, but hopefully a reconciliation here could mean Marloes Coenen gets another booking in Strikeforce. She was really the most unfortunate casualty of this whole situation, but if they get things together for Alistair, they might be able to salvage some things for their other fighters as well.
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