Podcast/Interview Thread (MMA/Boxing etc) ?

[NeverYield]

Coming back to the podcast with Andy Geer I'd like to get round to reading them books Bas Boon wrote as well, "Bloodsport Mafia", regarding the Dutch MMA and links to all sorts of crime at the time 

[jimufctna24]

3 hours ago, NeverYield said:

Coming back to the podcast with Andy Geer I'd like to get round to reading them books Bas Boon wrote as well, "Bloodsport Mafia", regarding the Dutch MMA and links to all sorts of crime at the time 

Aye, that book appears to be very interesting.

A preview can be found here - Joe Rogan, Dana White, Fedor & Mafia Truth Bombs - Bas Boon Says 

And further info from years ago can be found here - Bas Boon speaks out about PRIDE | FightOpinion.com – Your Global Connection to the Fight Industry.

From what I can gather from the above articles, a Dutch promoter by the name of Apy Echteld was partners with Fedor/M1 and did business with Boon. All of them got caught up with the Yakuza in Japan, specifically over Fedor's contract with Pride. Boon claims the contract was fraudulent, and this enabled his lawyer Miro Mijatovic to book Fedor on the infamous Inoki NYE show in 2003. In turn, Boon eventually fell out with pretty much all the other parties.  Seemingly as a result of Boon not supplying his Golden Glory fighters to the Too Hot Too Handle promotion in Holland, for which Echteld promoted and Pride/Yakuza provided support for, his house was raided, his car got shot, and he landed on a police watchlist. Pride/Yakuza also issued multiple death threats to Boon. 

Boon was also threatened by Russian Mafia, who seemingly acted on behalf of Russian Top Team, after he tempted Fedor and Kharitonov to ditch RTT as trainers and managers and sign with M1 and Boon/Mijatovic. The head of RTT, Vladimir Pogodin, had supposedly been underpaying Fedor while he was champion in Pride, and when Boon exposed this using his knowledge of how much his fighters were being paid by Pride, Fedor opted to leave RTT. Boon also has linked the aforementioned fake Pride contract with Pogodin, and the book apparently details why it was fraudulent. 

I don't want to spoil parts of the Geer podcast for those who have not seen it, but Geer and the hosts make some interesting comments about "the Dutch" during it.  

 

Edited May 28 by jimufctna24

[NeverYield]

17 hours ago, jimufctna24 said:

Aye, that book appears to be very interesting.

A preview can be found here - Joe Rogan, Dana White, Fedor & Mafia Truth Bombs - Bas Boon Says 

And further info from years ago can be found here - Bas Boon speaks out about PRIDE | FightOpinion.com – Your Global Connection to the Fight Industry.

From what I can gather from the above articles, a Dutch promoter by the name of Apy Echteld was partners with Fedor/M1 and did business with Boon. All of them got caught up with the Yakuza in Japan, specifically over Fedor's contract with Pride. Boon claims the contract was fraudulent, and this enabled his lawyer Miro Mijatovic to book Fedor on the infamous Inoki NYE show in 2003. In turn, Boon eventually fell out with pretty much all the other parties.  Seemingly as a result of Boon not supplying his Golden Glory fighters to the Too Hot Too Handle promotion in Holland, for which Echteld promoted and Pride/Yakuza provided support for, his house was raided, his car got shot, and he landed on a police watchlist. Pride/Yakuza also issued multiple death threats to Boon. 

Boon was also threatened by Russian Mafia, who seemingly acted on behalf of Russian Top Team, after he tempted Fedor and Kharitonov to ditch RTT as trainers and managers and sign with M1 and Boon/Mijatovic. The head of RTT, Vladimir Pogodin, had supposedly been underpaying Fedor while he was champion in Pride, and when Boon exposed this using his knowledge of how much his fighters were being paid by Pride, Fedor opted to leave RTT. Boon also has linked the aforementioned fake Pride contract with Pogodin, and the book apparently details why it was fraudulent. 

I don't want to spoil parts of the Geer podcast for those who have not seen it, but Geer and the hosts make some interesting comments about "the Dutch" during it.  

 

Definitely looks a good read, and a 3 part series too. Had a look at that preview I'm definitely gonna dive into those books at some point. 

Nice breakdown there mate, all very heavy stuff, and that era was definitely a wild era in combat sports in general. 

Yeah the Dutch Organised crime scene is very interesting, I've never really read too much about it being intertwined with combat sports, which is why I'm going to read those books, but Holland in general is very prevalent where looking at European OC is concerned. 

[jimufctna24]

2 hours ago, NeverYield said:

Nice breakdown there mate, all very heavy stuff, and that era was definitely a wild era in combat sports in general. 

Aye, the early 2000s up until around 2007/2008 is what I consider to be the most interesting period in MMA history for the behind the scenes stuff.  

2 hours ago, NeverYield said:

Yeah the Dutch Organised crime scene is very interesting, I've never really read too much about it being intertwined with combat sports, which is why I'm going to read those books, but Holland in general is very prevalent where looking at European OC is concerned. 

Aye, I haven't read too much into it either. 

I still learn new stuff about the Pride/Yakuza days. For example I was unaware until recently that the Yakuza created misleading invoices to frame Boon/Mijatovic for stealing money,  and turned Red Devil against them as a result. However, many of the stories from that time are well established nowadays. The Dutch stuff is all new to me, hence why Boon and Geer's testimony interests me so much. 

[Egg Shen]

Listened to part 1 of the Geer interview. Enjoyed it, I don't think the hosts are great, but there's no one else doing these kinds of shows so i'll take it. Some interesting tidbits in there and reminded me of some stuff id completely forgotten about.

[NeverYield]

28 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

Listened to part 1 of the Geer interview. Enjoyed it, I don't think the hosts are great, but there's no one else doing these kinds of shows so i'll take it. Some interesting tidbits in there and reminded me of some stuff id completely forgotten about.

The bald guy was a bit irritating at times, cutting Andy off when he was flowing, and some other things, other guy very quiet but yeah there's noone else doing those kinds of pods. He wasn't too bad, just found him a bit irritating at certain points. 

[Egg Shen]

Yeah, I agree 100% 

 

[jimufctna24]

The host had clearly researched Cage Rage's early events before the interview, and was thus prepared to ask Geer the right questions about them. He also didn't shy away from asking Geer about potentially sensitive subjects, such as Lee Murray and the Cage Rage's ties to the underworld. He also kept Geer on track at time, making sure he didn't skip ahead (this was most notable during their discussion of Cage Rage 7).

Still, I have to agree that he did cut off Geer needlessly at times. Hopefully he lets Geer flow a little more in their next interview. 

12 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

Some interesting tidbits in there and reminded me of some stuff id completely forgotten about.

Most of those titbits were completely new to me. I was completely clueless about early Cage Rage events until I listened to the podcast. My first exposure to Cage Rage came in 2005. IIRC, they had a highlights show on Bravo. I also read about their shows in Fighters Only magazine and on Sherdog during that period. Therefore with the exception of the Murray vs Silva bout, I knew nothing about their 2002-2004 shows. 

I even got confused about who Jason Barrett was, who Geer mentioned multiple times during the interview. I mistook him for Jeremy Bailey, until I realised my error at the end of the interview. In my defence, the reason I had them mixed up because my only prior memory of either was the promo for their fight together, which you can see below. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1 by jimufctna24

[NeverYield]

Yeah he did do his research to be fair to him, he just got in the way of his own work a bit at times to quite fighting terminology 🤣

Bloody hell Fighters Only, there's a blast from the past, I used to love that magazine.

Just had a quick search and it's still in circulation

[jimufctna24]

I probably haven't bought it in 20 years. Nice to read it's still going though. 

Ian Freeman was heavily involved with it when I used to buy it. I recall that he was obsessed with "keyboard warriors". 

 

[Egg Shen]

I like how Geer spoke about how they encouraged fighters to have a bit of a personality and a persona they could sell. It kind of ties into why so many people disliked the presentation at the time, with the low production values it definitely came off tacky, but looking back I appreciated the effort they put it to make it abit of a show.

@jimufctna24Jeremy Bailey was also involved with the Lee Murray robbery, there's a documentary on Amazon about him (which im yet to see), as well as podcasts with the usual crime geezers.

 

[NeverYield]

Yeah Cage Rage just had it's own feel didn't it, and nothing in UK MMA has replicated it since. 

I would love for something similiar to exist today. 

[jimufctna24]

12 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

I like how Geer spoke about how they encouraged fighters to have a bit of a personality and a persona they could sell. It kind of ties into why so many people disliked the presentation at the time, with the low production values it definitely came off tacky, but looking back I appreciated the effort they put it to make it abit of a show.

Regarding this. 

The presentation did indeed have many critics in the 2000s. They felt it made the sport look "gangster" and "chavvy". I mostly agreed with them at the time, and even now, Cage's Rage presentation is not my preferred way to present MMA. I've long felt that Dream Stage Entertainment, and then its former executives at Dream and Rizin, are by far the best at presenting MMA, from hype packages to lighting to music and so on. 

However, I have lightened up a bit towards Cage Rage's presentation as the years have gone on. Today's MMA can be incredibly depressing, and at times dull, to follow. Heck, there is a thread on this forum specifically titled "Combat Sports Positivity? Where?", which underlines that positive occurrences are the exception rather than the norm in today's MMA. At least Cage Rage's presentation was kinda funny, even in a naff way. It certainly wasn't dull. 

O'Donnell was far closer to a GAD or Adam Smith than a Greg Hardy or McGregor too. A tit, rather than a wrong-un. 

Edited June 2 by jimufctna24

[jimufctna24]

Part 2:

 

[jimufctna24]

No spoilers, but my favourite part of episode 2 was Geer addressing Cage Rage's fallout with the Wolfslair camp. 

I had actually forgotten that Wolfslair had been banished from Cage Rage until it was brought up during the podcast. However,  I do now recall reading about it on the forums at the time. From what I recall the consensus was that Cage Rage were unprofessional and spiting themselves by banning the Wolfslair from competing in their shows. I don't think Cage Rage's side of the story was really know, so it was nice to hear Geer put it across. 

A few grievances aside, which I will bring up in a few weeks after everyone else has had a chance to watch it, I don't actually mind Geer and thinks he comes across quite well. I look forward to episode 3.