Glory Kickboxing has been airing on Spike TV in the U.S. and even took a stab at the North American PPV market but it looks like the high tide might be receding as several top fighters are coming out to complain that their contracts have been allowed to lapse.
Tyron Spong was the latest to complain about being left in limbo as he told MMA Fighting last week in Brazil that his contract has expired and has not been renewed. He’s contracted to World Series of Fighting for MMA. He suffered an Anderson Silva-style shin break against Gokhan Saki earlier this year.
Saki is also in contractual limbo. The Glory Light Heavyweight champ told the Fight Network all about it in September.
Dave Walsh commented on the Saki situation at Liver Kick:
There have been endless rumors swirling around about GLORY over the past few months, including rumors about certain fighters’ contracts expiring. This doesn’t exactly mean that these fighters are going to leave GLORY, but contract negotiations are a serious thing and money does speak louder than words or promises for a lot of fighters. One of which that we’ve known about for a while now is Gokhan Saki. There have been issues between GLORY management and Saki’s team for a while now, only for the latest to be talk of his GLORY contract expiring and him having offers from promoters in Russia and Dubai (Dubai being where he’s currently training).
Glory Middleweight contender Joe Schilling complained to MMA Mania about his nebulous contract status with the promotion as well:
“We thought that there was another fight on the contract, but after going back over it, it was a two-fight guaranteed with a third-fight option,” Schilling explained. “My contract expired along with Spong’s and Saki’s. So GLORY is taking credit on the internet — Liverkick did a write up about it — trying to give GLORY credit for co-promoting it or allowing me to go. They had absolutely nothing to do with it. I’m a free agent. My contract expired and Bellator offered me a good deal and we took it, but it had absolutely nothing to do with GLORY.”
“We’ve been told they want to start to negotiate a new one, but nothing is happening with that yet. They allowed my contract to expire. Bellator offered me a new one and we took it. The wording in the Bellator contract does allow me to fight outside of Bellator for kickboxing. It doesn’t have to be just GLORY, there are other promotions available as well. I’m out of my contract with GLORY, this deal had nothing to do with GLORY and It’s kind of shocking to me that they would let my contract expire.”
Meanwhile Glory’s CEO is talking to our own Fraser Coffeen about ambitious expansion plans and schemes to sign UFC fighters like Donald Cerrone to kickboxing deals.
Up next for Glory is Glory 18 Oklahoma on November 7. After that, there will be one more 2014 show in December, a month off in January, and they are shooting for a full slate of 10 shows in 2015, with the majority taking place in the US. All will air on Spike, and there are hopes to get the Superfight Series on US TV as well, plus bring Glory to even more international channels. Stay tuned to Bloody Elbow for more updates as we have them.
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