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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Ahead of his 2013 return to the cage, UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem has finished one battle outside of the Octagon, as MMAJunkie.com reports that Overeem and his former management group have reached a settlement in their competing lawsuits.
Overeem was a longtime member of Golden Glory, the Dutch fight team and management group which also oversees kickboxing promotion Glory World Series. However, as he prepared to enter the UFC late last year, he left the team, then sued Golden Glory, claiming his was bullied into a bad deal that gave Golden Glory 35% of his earnings. Additionally, he asked for $151,000 in back pay from them.
Golden Glory countersued via their parent company, Knockout Investments, just one day before Overeem made his UFC debut against Brock Lesnar at UFC 141. They claimed that Overeem had breached his contract, and that he still owed them 30% of his earnings from a fight with Fabricio Werdum last June.
They attempted to get a court order to withhold a significant portion of his fight purse for the Lesnar fight, failing on the first attempt, but getting the court to hold over $400,000 from Overeem while the lawsuits were being contested. They've now reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount, with Golden Glory's lawyer, Rodrick Lindblom, releasing a statement on the matter.
Read the statement, "Everyone worked extremely hard to resolve these matters so that Golden Glory and (Golden Glory head) Bas Boon can walk away and move forward with the Glory World Series Promotion in Europe, Japan and the USA, and Alistair Overeem can concentrate on his fighting career with his new manager Glenn Robinson at Authentic Sports Management and his new team, the Blackzilians."
Penick's Analysis: This was ultimately likely to come down to a settlement between the two parties. Each had grievances against the other, the validity of which was questioned from each side, but this was one of those cases that wasn't likely to go to trial. Neither side wanted to keep it dragged out, and Overeem especially wasn't happy with a lien on his earnings from December. He'll return to action on Feb. 2 against Bigfoot Silva, and with this behind him it's one less distraction as he gets into camp soon for that next fight.
[Alistair Overeem art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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