Outspoken mixed martial arts veteran Bas Rutten spoke with Paul Lazenby yesterday to shed some light on the dispute between former Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem and his former training camp Golden Glory.
This interview with Lazenby really got to Bas and you will see in the transcription below how he absolutely goes off on Overeem.
When a fighter’s lost three in a row, and there is no hope for him, the trainer is always there for him, helping him again and again, and the management is trying to find fights for him. Understand as well that trainers like Cor Hemmers and Martijn de Jong are busy with the fighter 24 hours a day. I talked to Cor in the past and he told me he couldn’t sleep from all the tension, and about thinking: “What’s the best game plan for Alistair?” Also know that when Alistair [first] came to Cor, when he would get hit, he would turn his back to his opponent and didn’t want to fight! You saw that when he fought his first K-1 fight in Holland, it was very bad. And when he was losing, [his trainers] were the ones who convinced him to go heavyweight since he was cutting way too much [to make light-heavyweight].
He tries to let the rest of the world think that the coaches and other fighters are on his side, and that it’s only the management he has problems with. But that is absolutely NOT the case. I mean, go to Cor Hemmers’ gym and look at the posters with pictures of Alistair on there, see what his fellow fighters did to them.
And you know what he said to Martijn? I know this because I talked with Martijn personally three days ago. When he told Martijn he didn’t want to pay the 10% trainer’s fee–and remember, Cor and Martijn SPLIT the 10%, so it’s not 20% in total–Martijn told him that he was there with him for TWELVE YEARS, and that they trained him for so long and went through the ups and downs, especially the downs. And on top of that, he said that he was Alistair’s friend this whole time, and made a big contribution to Alistair’s success.
But Alistair said: “Yeah, if we have to talk about people who contributed to my success, then I also have to mention my cleaning lady who cleans my house for eleven and a half Euros an hour.”
OK, just think about that for a second. It’s almost like it’s not real. I mean, he REALLY said this! I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t the truth, you know me, Paul.
