The UFC has been paring down its roster the last few weeks and the biggest victims have been the fighters managed by Golden Glory out of Holland. Alistair Overeem, Marloes Coenen, Jon Olav Einemo and Valentijn Overeem have all been released from their Strikeforce and UFC contracts the last few weeks.
UFC president Dana White explained that the firing of Golden Glory fighters was not payback for the actions of Alistair Overeem, who was fired the week before. He said Golden Glory requires that all fighter purses are paid directly to Golden Glory's manager Martijn de Jong and not the fighters.
"This is actually a pretty simple explanation," he said. "If you look back throughout history, we haven't had any Golden Glory guys fight with us since Semmy Schilt, right? And the reason is we have very different business practices. It's tough to do business with them. The bottom line is the way they do business is, you have to pay them, not the fighters," White said. "We don't work that way. 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."
The promotion asked for that to be changed, so it could pay the fighters directly.
"They won't do it," White said. "We have to pay them, not the fighters."
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker explained to Sirius' Mauro Ranallo that a lack of open dates for Strikeforce fight also dictated the cuts:
[...] with Valentijn (Overeem) and Marloes (Coenen), you know, right now, there's only so many TV spots, as you know, until the middle of next year. And, uh, they're, um, you know, in this business, you've gotta keep winning," Coker said. "The slots are going to be for the fighters that are victorious right now. We have a lot of athletes under contract and we have to get everybody fights and there's only so many slots. There's only so many TV dates, we only have two more TV dates on the big show before the end of the year. September is already full, December is getting full and then January is hopefully are finals and that's going to have a full card already. So in fairness to the athletes, why just let them hang around? It's a much fairer situation."
In somewhat shocking news, Golden Glory fighter Sergei Kharitonov will be allowed to fight the rest of the way in the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix, but win or lose, he'll be cut at the conclusion of the tourney as long as the pay policy continues.
Kharitonov is scheduled to fight Josh Barnett on Sept. 10. If he wins, he'll face the winner of Daniel Cormier and Antonio Silva. If he wins the tournament, he'll then be fired.
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