The Strikeforce promotion has been intermingled throughout MMA news stories for the last few weeks in interesting ways.  Things seem to be heating to a boil in several areas. Gegard Mousasi departed from his humble and quiet demeanor to claim Paulo Filho was a "donkey" who used steroids after Filho publicly stated he would submit Mousasi.  We had the three-faceted trash talk between Mayhem, Jacare, and Shields, who are all chomping at the bit and eachother to be aligned in the interim title fight while the middleweight champion remains absent.  Then Fabricio Werdum threw his hat in the ring by addressing the other absent champion, Alistair Overeem, by claiming that Overeem was scared of either being submitted by Werdum or caught by the commission for using steroids. Now, the manager of Golden Glory and Alistair Overeem, Bas Boon, has unleashed some rather choice comments about M1 Global and Strikeforce's new partnership with them.  From a post on MixFight.nl (translated by Bloody Elbow):

“It hasn’t escaped my notice that we are dealing with a bunch of crooks who wish to brand their name onto someone who has managed to build up a successful organization on his own with a good network deal.” “Our deal with Strikeforce was made before this bunch of robbers came along, but now we were planning on asking our money in advance. In fact, I see this as the ideal opportunity to say no to the contract that was signed earlier; we don't want to fight on any M-mini Cons & co promotions.”

"Is this the same organization that let Tommy Depret fly to America for nothing without having the decency to phone him to let him know it was cancelled?" "I wonder what happens if Fedor loses a couple of times, or can't fight due to circumstances, to all those enforced `Co-Promotions` that do not benefit the fighters in any way."

Ouch.  Perhaps this is one of the missing pieces as to why the Overeem and Werdum title fight fizzled out, which hit the newsstands almost simultaneously with Strikeforce's acquisition of Fedor Emelianenko and agreement to co-promote with Vadim Finkelstein's M1 Global.

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