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Cro Cop vs. Bonjasky is a possibility.
K-1 promoters made an official offer to
Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic to fight against
Remy Bonjasky on their
September 25th show at the
Nihon Budokan. K-1's official website had an official fan poll and Cro Cop vs. Bonjasky was the fight most fans voted for.
K-1 promoter
Sadaharu Tanigawa also said that he would've made an offer to both
Rodrigo 'Minotauro' Nogueira and
Fedor Emelianenko had their fight not ended in a
no-contest.
This is a sign that
K-1 is seriously struggling, and is ready to try and go to war with
PRIDE in order to regain ground.
The first round of the
K-1 World GP Finals usually is booked for a
50,000 seat capacity arena, but now they are holding it at the
Nihon Budokan, which only seats around
10,000. The rumor is that K-1 tickets are not selling well, and that more and more fans are interested in
PRIDE-style matches and events.
K-1 is very worried about the
year end event because they have no superfight to put up against PRIDE. They wanted to make a
Akebono vs. Bob Sapp rematch, but this was laughed at by the
Japanese media, and Sapp is rumored to be having some problems with the K-1 office.
I want to add that in my opinion more and more fans are losing interest in the
kickboxing-style matches.
NHB/MMA has grown in popularity ten fold in the last two years, and it seems that nothing is going to stop that from increasing.
The popularity of MMA matches and events has also made for a much deeper
talent pool for PRIDE to select from. K-1's massive drop in talent, and selection of
boxers and
project fighters has shown that the amount of good kickboxers is not growing in number, and that the sport as a whole seems to be losing popularity fast.
Discuss this at Fightsport.com
Ron Rose
My name is
Ron Rose. I am the managing member of
Sturgis 2004 LLC and one of the major investors in this enterprise. Many of the fight websites have printed
libelous remarks about me and my involvement in the
Sturgis Music Festival. I can no longer remain silent and swallow this abuse without replying with the facts. The following article making the rounds is typical enough of what is being said that I will respond to it point by point with facts, not innuendo!
This is what is being printed about me:
Some friends of mine are involved in a fight promotion in Sturgis this weekend. Seems Mr. Rose skipped town to the tune of
$600k. This from
www.graciefighter.com:
"An absolute fiasco has engulfed the IFC show in Sturgis, South Dakota. The IFC was one of several shows to be prominently featured at the famous Sturgis motorcycle rally. Musicians B.B. King and the group 38 Special along with comedians Dana Carvey and Paul Rodriguez were all contracted to perform this weekend. Unfortunately it seems as if a crooked investor has forced the cancellation of all performances. Ron Rose is a 7x World Poker Champion and one of the co-investor/promoters. Mr. Rose apparently stole an estimated 400 to 600 thousand dollars of the ticket sales and then promptly skipped town. He also took with him all of the E ticket terminals. The terminals were the only record keeping machines for the revenues being generated and it is assumed that he took them so he could wipe out the hard drives, making an exact accounting of how much he took impossible. Several hundred bikers had purchased tickets to the various shows and are now left with the fact that they were duped out of their money. Millions will be lost on the show due to the fact that there were several television shows filming the perfomances along with an HBO special. The IFC show was set to be a pay per view event and will very likely be cancelled if other investors don't ante up for the stolen revenue. Paul Smith and Monte Cox are scrambling to make the Horn vs. Marquardt fight happen, however Pe De Pano vs. Severn and all of the Brazilian fighters' fights have been officially cancelled. We will not find out until tomorrow morning whether or not the whole show will be cancelled. "
First and most libelous is the fact the I have been
wrongly accused of taking off with
$600,000 of ticket receipts. If that were not so absurd, ridiculous and downright malicious, it would be laughable. The sales for the first three concerts, all of which were first class, were dismal. Total sales for the first concert in an arena that would hold
15,000 spectators was
548 paid attendance. Second Concert,
562 paid attendance. Third concert,
Hank Williams, Jr., one of our top draws was
1,501 paid attendance. The receipts for these figures did not even begin to cover what we paid in entertainment fees to the artists. All cash sales were deposited the next day in the bank. All credit card sales were recorded at
Etix online ticket sales. All figures can be accounted for by the bank, Etix and by the
CPA who acted as the controller to be sure that sales were conducted properly. How I could walk off with
$600,000 is a mystery to me and to any reasonable person. Accusations to this effect are not only libelous they are incredibly hurtful to myself and my family.
As to advance sales,
Classic Rock Night had
252 tickets sold;
B.B. King had
605 ;
Las Vegas Night, a mere
20,
Comic Relief,
35 and the great
IFC rumble had a grand total of
36 seats sold. Again, no
$600,000 figures here! And all sales were accounted for in the same way as for the concerts which took place. I ask you. Does this merit putting on five more shows? Only a moron would continue.
Next point,
Comic Relief Night. We had no contract at all with Comic Relief. Despite repeated attempts to nail down a contract and have them provide us with a lineup so that we could advertise and make advance sales, it was not until
August 6th, one week before the performance that we were told that we had
Paul Rodriguez and
6 no-name comics lined up to perform.
Dana Carvey was not scheduled or expected to be scheduled. More lies! How can a promoter sell tickets for a show with no lineup? And, oh, we were also promised one of the three big Comic Relief Stars which we of course did not get –
Whoopi Goldberg,
Robin Williams or
Billy Crystal! Coincidentally we could never even get a contract with Comic Relief even though they were paid
$25,000 earlier in the process.
I don't need to comment again about the slurs to my reputation which are asserted next in the post. They are of course libelous and actionable by law. The writer does not even have my poker wins correct. I would love to admit to being a 7-time World Champion, but it just ain't so! More inaccuracies.
As to the computer terminals, they were returned to the computer store which rented them to
Sturgis 2004 for ticket sales the morning after the concerts were cancelled. They were laptops with a swipe for credit cards. I could not wipe out the hard drives, since all information is on the system at
Etix, not on the computers we used to process the credit cards. Again, Etix has a full accounting of tickets sold and are giving refunds from funds collected from
Visa/MC ticket sales. Despite repeated attempts over the last month to get a complete accounting from Etix we have never seen one.
Several hundred bikers have not been
'duped' out of their money. Credit card sales are being refunded and we have taken names of those who called in for cash refunds. However, at this time those who have paid cash for tickets may not get a refund because of lack of funds.
Now, for one of the biggest bits of misinformation put out by my detractors –
Television contracts. There was never at any time the possibility of a contract with
HBO for
Comic Relief. And we did not have a signed contract with the
IFC pay per view event. They presented us with a contract a few days before the show, expecting, I guess that we would sign anything at that point. We did not.
For anyone interested in the facts, there are three major reasons why this cancellation happened.
First,
lack of attendance. We had an A+ facility – stage, bleachers, LED screens, plenty of room to stand – a capacity of 15,000. The attendance cited above should speak for itself.
Second, when our investment group was presented with this concert idea we were promised one to one and a half million dollars in sponsorship. We were told of a list of sponsors that were supposedly already signed or ready to sign like
Ford,
Gillette, etc. In actuality,we received
$7,000 to rent a tent which may or may not be called sponsorship. That leaves a deficit in sponsorship monies of, let's see, "only"
$993,000 to
$1,493,000. The
people that promised this as a way to lure investors, are the real culprits. I tried my level best to keep this thing going, working night and day since the day I was made a managing member. Surprise after surprise from the other members who obligated the corporation to pay monies without the authority to do so made it virtually impossible. But for all my work and for all the money I put in (they put in nothing as investors – nothing!) I could not make it go. As a last resort, I turned to the group who owned the venue area in
Sturgis if they would like to take over the
Sturgis Music Festival so that the shows would not have to be cancelled. After I told them what the ticket sales had been; they politely declined.
Third, the city of Sturgis gave us zero in the way of support to bring bikers into the city for entertainment. They
'allowed' us to put a banner on the armory which they required us to have made by their printer at a cost of about
$5,000 and the mayor wanted
20 all events passes worth
$4,500 in return. They promised parking for the event. They charged $5 per head for parking (they got that money) and provided another free lot a half of a mile away from the venue. That is it. That is what the city did for us. Once the event was cancelled, the Mayor wanted to distance the city from us so stated to all who would listen that the city had nothing to do with the
Sturgis Music Festival.
Why did I leave without defending myself?
I was advised by the police who were there when we cancelled the show and by the security guards not to stay. My life was threatened, both in person and by telephone. My family was with me (who by the way worked 14-16 hour days the whole time solely out of the goodness of their hearts) and I would not risk their safety for anything! I talked by telephone continuously to those involved, Etix, bank, investors, ticket holders, Sturgis officials, etc. what I got in return were more threats and malicious lies spread about me.
This brings me to my last point. I have a list of all who have posted libelous comments on the net. If they are not taken off immediately they will be included in my
libel and slander suit against all who are spreading rumors which people are only too anxious to pick up and spread.
I did not have to write this rebuttal to all the garbage that has appeared, but enough is enough! It's time for action.
Sturgis 2004 LLC will not have enough funds to pay all its debts and will likely have to go into
bankruptcy. It is not what we had planned. We envisioned something that would be good for Sturgis, for the bikers and visitors and for the investors. It did not happen for the reasons stated above. My detractors should also keep in mind that Sturgis 2004 LLC is not comprised solely of Ron Rose. There are other members of the corporation, some of whom have started these malicious lies about me. They must bear their share of the blame for what has happened. I regret the outcome. I regret that there are others who are profoundly affected by this development. But I can only speak for myself. You will not likely hear from the others!
Ron Rose
Discuss this at Fightsport.com
