John-Olav Einemo on His Release, Alistair Overeem and Other Golden Glory Members

Alistair Overeem's release from his Strikeforce contract along with the release of almost all of his teammates dominated the headlines last week and unfortunately it has been difficult to get a view that tells the whole story.

John-Olav Einemo had a chat with Bleacher Report to discuss his release from the UFC and the release of his teammates. Like fans and media alike Einemo was just as surprised to see everyone cut out from Zuffa, LLC, the parent company of both the UFC and Strikeforce.

To recap what happened, Alistair Overeem was first cut out of the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament because he wasn't ready to fight on the September 10 date for the Strikeforce tournament semi-finals. From there Overeem was cut by Zuffa and shortly thereafter, Einemo, Valentijn Overeem and Marloes Coenen were released as well. UFC president Dana White told mmafighting.com's Ariel Helwani that Zuffa had issues with the fact that Golden Glory wanted to receive the fighters' purses as oppose to the fighters themselves.

Former women's 135 pound Strikeforce champion Marloes Coenen, posted a picture on her Twitter of the cheque she received for her championship fight with Miesha Tate as proof that the cheque was in her name. From there White rebuttals in an interview with Mauro Ranallo on The Score, by explaining that the Golden Glory fighters were getting the checks made out to their names, but that the management was upset about the way fighter payment was working and trying to change it.

Contrary to what White has said, Einemo claims that the fighters are the ones who want their purses to go to Golden Glory, not the Golden Glory management team.

"It’s not really true that it is Golden Glory that wants to have the checks written to them." Einemo told Bleacher report. "The fighters actually want to get paid through Golden Glory, the case with me was that I was asking to get paid through Golden Glory and asking if there was any chance they could do it this way."

Einemo feels as though he is simply part of a game and despite asking Zuffa if his pay cheque could be signed over to Golden Glory he doesn't see why it has become the main reason for why all the Golden Glory fighters were released.

"When we got to Vancouver we wanted to talk about the situation and ask them [Zuffa] if there was any way I could get paid like I wanted to get paid and they said no." Einemo said. "We were discussing with one of the lawyers from Zuffa and they said this is the way it has to be and we have to do it this way and it was fine. Then we found another solution to how we did it and there wasn’t any problem. I got along well with all the people over there."

Some of you maybe wondering why Golden Glory fighters want to have their purse handed over to Golden Glory and not themselves, Einemo took some time to explain it. 

"It is a little bit for tax reasons, also of course Golden Glory is a big team and we have to pay a percentage of our salary to trainers, managers and you know everybody needs money and everybody has to live. So it is a little bit easier to do it that way, just pay Golden Glory, they take their cut and then I get what’s coming to me.

Einemo continued by saying that there were maybe some other things in his contract that were more of a problem then the way he was getting paid, so he really doesn't understand why White would say the payment method is the issue at hand.

"My manager Bas Boon he was a little bit upset about something, I think I cannot got into this too much because it is specifically on the contract and it is not for me to discuss that, but there was a couple of things he wasn’t happy about, but with the payment [method] we accepted, there was no problem with that."

Unfortunately Einemo wasn't open to discussing the issues his manager saw with his UFC contract, but clearly he seemed very surprised by the fact that White is claiming that the payment method was the main issue with Golden Glory.

When asked what he thinks the issue was between Zuffa and Golden Glory he feels it had something to do with former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem's contract.

"To me it seems like Zuffa didn’t really like the position we were in. Like in Alistair’s position, he was in a very good position with the tournament he had only one fight left on his contract." Einemo said. "They [Strikforce]] saw Alistair’s negotiations were coming so maybe they decided to do them now before the [Grand Prix] final, but I don’t really get why they should cut everybody."

Einemo lost his first and only fight in the UFC earlier this summer against Dave Herman. However, both Herman's and Einemo's performances earned them Fight of the Night honors and judging by the UFC's reaction he felt he would get another chance.

"Yeah I was actually, very surprised because I thought at least that I was safe for one more fight, but you know that you have to perform all the time to stay in the game, but it was surprising." Einemo said. "I didn’t talk to Dana, but Joe [Silva] came to me and said really good job we decided you are going to get Fight of the night and get the bonus and we are really excited to have you back again."

Throughout this whole conversation one could hear the surprise and disappointment in Einemo's voice when he rehashed what had transpired.

The bottom line is that Einemo appears to feel betrayed and doesn't fully understand the way Zuffa operates.

"It doesn’t really feel to good to be a piece in someone’s game or something" Einemo said.

"I hope so, I really hope so, but it’s not really easy to understand how Zuffa works. Nobody is safe it seems. I have no idea after this shock that came, now it is hard to say how they work." Einemo responded when asked whether he felt Sergei Kharitonov would stay with Strikeforce if he won the tournament.

"I am here [in Thailand] training now with Sergei [Kharitonov] because yeah he is the only one left."

Golden Glory obviously wants Kharitonov to beat Josh Barnett and win the Grand Prix and this is part of the reason why Einemo is in Thailand training with him so hard.

Einemo sums it up pretty succinctly when asked about Zuffa's dealings with Golden Glory fighters recently when he says "Just a big surprise."

Einemo like some of the other fighters seems to be a bit in the dark himself, but one gets the impression that he is pretty adamant with the fact that payment methods were never a big enough issue to warrant cutting so many fighters.

Now we have had a chance to hear from Zuffa on the Golden Glory releases, the Golden Glory fighters who were released like Einemo and all that remains is some kind of statement from the Golden Glory management. Bleacher Report reached out to Golden Glory manager Bas Boon, but has not received any responses thus far.

Leon Horne is a writer for Bleacher Report, Follow @Leon_Horne