Golden Glory trainer Martijn DeJong announced this morning on his Twitter that Marloes Coenen, Valentyn Overeem and Jon Olav Einemo were released by Zuffa. This is obviously related to last week's release of Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem and is designed to send a message to Golden Glory and M-1 Global about how Zuffa wants to do business. Both companies are promoters mostly in Europe but M-1 has done shows in the US. Both companies want to be paid by Zuffa and then pay the fighters. I assume this is for tax reasons but I'm not an accountant and I don't play one on TV. Zuffa wants to pay the fighters directly. BTW, this is the reason they never signed Fedor Emilianenko and why Fedor and other M-1 fighters will be gone from Zuffa. And I fully expect Golden Glory's Sergei Kharitanov to be released if he loses to Josh Barnett on Sept. 10. Marloes Coenen still has value so normally she should be kept around. But considering the relationship between Zuffa and Golden Glory is not friendly, her release is not surprising to me. Keep in mind that Cris Cyborg is signing a new deal. Chute Boxe may have handled the negotiations but the contract is with Cris. So keep the histrionics to a minimum. This is not about women's MMA. This is Zuffa telling certain people how they want to do business. This is not an issue with fighters in the North America, Asia or Brazil. This is only an issue in Europe.
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