Simon Rutz and his partners are taking action against K-1. The following lines are written by Simon Rutz and were send to the press vie e-mail.

After years of being loyal to K-1 (FEG) regarding the late payment, or no payment at all, to our fighters, we would like to release the following statement. For more than half a year K-1 owes us more than 400.000 US dollars in total because several fighters which we represent have not been paid. Every time we were asked to have more patience because a potential investor would be interested to take over K-1.

Until now, we have never contacted a lawyer to claim our credits because we granted K-1 the time they need to financially recover. However, we were very surprised to hear that DREAM and K-1 want to organize a number of smaller events. In our opinion that isn’t possible before K-1 first pays its debts to fighters which already have fought. Therefore, now is the time for us to hire a lawyer.

Also, fighters are even receiving phone calls from Mr. Tanikawa with a threat to not fight for IT’S SHOWTIME JAPAN. If fighters would fight for IT’S SHOWTIME JAPAN, they can wave their money goodbye. Mr. Tanikawa is not in the position to act this way, and subservience would fit him a lot better. Mr. Tanikawa doesn’t understand that K-1 has to pay their debts because the fighters have already delivered their service to K-1.

Sadaharu Tanikawa und Simon Rutz

We can only describe the way K-1 has been managed the last years as amateurish and almost as deceit. If we hadn’t put a huge amount of pressure on K-1 just before the K-1 World Grand Prix Final of last year, some fighters would have been even more financially struck.

Even if an investor for K-1 will appear, we really hope that Mr. Tanikawa will take a management course first, otherwise the invested money will disappear like snow in the sun.

The next fighters still have to receive big amounts of money from K-1: Giorgio Petrosyan, Tyrone Spong, Hesdy Gerges, Daniel Ghita, Melvin Manhoef, Pajonsuk Superpro Samui, Chahid Oulad el Hadj, Gago Drago and Dzevad Poturak.

These are only the fighters which are represented by us. However, also a lot of fighters are still patiently waiting for their money. We would like to emphasize that it’s incorrect that K-1 even organizes events without paying their debts to these fighters.

Simon Rutz
IT’S SHOWTIME