GOLDEN GLORY (http://www.goldenglory.com/history.html)
The Birth of Golden Glory
The birth of Golden Glory started on the sunny island of Aruba on May 23rd, 1999. Producer Bas Boon met businessman Ron Nyqvist and after Boon successfully held the first ever Cage Fighting Championships in Holland in April 1996, plans were made to start organizing on the sunny Caribbean island of Aruba.
After the first Cage Fighting Championships in Emmen, Holland, there was huge political pressure not to have any of these events again in Holland, so for Boon this was a huge opportunity. It only took a few years to follow up on the huge success in Holland, this time on a white beach in the Caribbean. A crew of a hundred and four people flew to the sunny island of Aruba, two months before a cage was built on the island and the location was determined to be next to the disco Havana Beach Club.
It looked like a Charles Bronson Street fighter movie (photo 1, 2, 3), huge sea containers surrounded the arena, in the open air with an entrance from the beach it looked like a movie set from some wicked producer with too much fantasy. However Boon and Nyqvist were determined and with the help of famous trainer Cor Hemmers the event became a huge success!
Producer Frederico Lapenda, a long time business partner of Bas Boon, created the World Vale Tudo Championships. Boon and Frederico met in Japan where the first WVC was held. The corporation between Boon, Lapenda and Nyqvist turned out to be a golden formula. Frederico brought the fighters from America and Boon the fighters from Europe. Ron brought in the business aspect and he turned out to be a great promoter, only the best for him.
http://www.goldenglory.com/img/history/p04.jpg (photo 4) Group photo WVTC 8 on the beach
http://www.goldenglory.com/img/history/p05.jpg (photo 5) L to R - F. Lapenda, B. Boon, A, Muyales, Carcareco, R. Nyqvist
The winner of the eight men tournament in Holland, Dutchman Willy Peeters loved the island and loved fighting and he did not think twice when he got the offer to fight on the island. Unfortunately the referee stopped the fight because of a cut but Willy did not want to give up photo (photo 6, 7), and was very disappointed with the decision (great fighting spirit from Peeters). The crowd loved the spectacle and when the finals came with Heath Herring from America against Carcareco from Brazil the audience was in for a thrill (photo 8). Thirty minutes with no break these two gladiators fought bare hands old school for an enthusiastic Caribbean crowd and live TV made the fight a classic (photo 11). The fight should have been a draw but because the Brazilian was lighter he was given the victory (photo 12). Heath Herring was disappointed and wanted revenge, everybody liked the young 19 year-old Texas fighter and Ron promised him a new fight which came on the 25th of September, 1999.
The WVTC 9 returned to the island on the 25th of September, 1999, and was called "The Battle of the Titans." (photos 9, 10)
The first event was a huge success but the follow up was doomed for failure, a battle against all odds and elements.
Huge posters were printed with Cage Fighting Championships WVC 9 for publicity on the island, but after articles in the Dutch Magazine Revue, the Dutch government put pressure on the parliament of the Caribbean Island (called the Dutch West Indies/ Caribbean), a cage was not allowed anymore this time for fights to take place? Posters were not allowed as there was text which said "cage fighting" and the title "the fighting island" and it should be promoted as the sunny island, department of tourist protested and so the posters needed to change and no cage but a ring should take it's place (lots of headaches a promoter does not need days before an event).
Everybody (fighters and staff) stayed in the resort hotel Talk of the Town" (hotel near the Havanna Beach Club) all fighters arrived after some difficulties to the island, but one fighter of the tournament wanted a nice holiday and reported himself (one day for the tournament) injured as he stood on a rock in the reef and sprained his ankle (later we found out he never wanted to participate he just wanted a nice Caribbean trip). But this was the least of the promoter and producer's problems, three days of rain and the event was in the open air? Many fighters came to Bas Boon at dinner and ask what he was going to do, Boon answered he would do a sun dance and not to worry everything would be fine.
The day before Piamonte (chutebox from Brazil) and Yvel almost fought in the hotel and it was only because of Hans Nijman and Dick Vry that an actual fight was prevented. A lot of tension was building for the promoters and fighters.
On the day of the fight the rain stopped one hour before the event started, the whole event went smoothly with Heath Herring dominating all of his fights winning the WVC 9 belt,
of course not too many people attended the fight, all because the posters were changed a few days before the fight and the rain. When the event was over it started raining half an hour later, if there was a God he must have listened to Boon's sun dance, that was incredible. Despite the financial disaster Ron Nyqvist was a man of his word, everybody got paid and looking back at the fights the event was really good, the female super fight was awesome which ended in a draw (photo 13) with both girls fighting like crazy and pulling every trick out the book to become victories. Piamonte vs. Yvel was one of the most vicious fights ever seen as bad blood was there between both fighters before the fight, they hated each other and it showed in the fight, what a fight (photo 14)!!!! Heath was the best that night and became champion (photo 16); the group photo (photo 15) can be seen that the weather was far from sunny. After this event Bas and Ron spoke till deep in the night, there was a huge loss, not really the thing you deserve working really hard to make an event happen like this. Bas who was a promoter and producer for a long period of time did some management, including fighters like Aerts, Igor Vovchanchin, guiding them at a very young age. Boon suggested starting a management company to retain the losses for his partner Ron Nyqvist. Ron immediately loved the idea and both partners agreed to start Golden Glory, before names like Pirates and other names came up but this name stood out, you could feel great energy coming from this name. With Gilbert Yvel winning the WVC super fight and Heath Herring the eight men tournament title, it was not difficult to get these fighters in Japan.
WVC produced champions like Oleg Taktarov, Mark Kerr, Pedro Rizzo, Marco Ruas and all of them fought in Japan or the UFC and gained popularity worldwide. With a huge article on the Caribbean fights in the Japanese magazines the champions became names in Japan. Ron got Heath Herring to come to Holland and live and train there, he was given an apartment and transportation and was trained by champion trainer Cor Hemmers. At the same time Ron approached Valentijn and Alistair Overeem and Bas approached Semmy Schilt after his classical war fight with Yvel in Utrecht Holland (Semmy was trained by the famous Dave Jonkers who then made Semmy already world champion Karate and 2x King of Pancrase). Boon came up with Chalid "Die Faust" Arrab, Fatih "the Turkish Terror" and later Stefan "The Blitz Leko" more and more fighters joined the team and Gilbert Yvel and Heath Herring both got a contract with Pride. First Gilbert became World Champion at the Rings event in Japan, it was Ron who made the step to Pride and that's where the real fighting career started for both fighters. Later fighters like Alistair Overeem became World Champion at the IMA and also Chalid Arrab defeated Roman Zentsov by KO in round one, became European Champion Mix Fight in the Cage in St. Petersburg. Fatih Kocamis beat Gambarjan for the title in Russia. Murad Chunkaev defeated Andrey Semenov in only his second fight at 2H2H. Stefan and Chalid winning the K-1 GP in Las Vegas 2006 and Semmy Schilt became World GP Champion 2005. Gilbert Yvel went his own way in 2004 and also Heath Herring went his own way after five years of training in Holland, he missed America and now trains at the Las Vegas Combat Club, Golden Glory wishes them success in their future careers. Recently Evigeny Lotin and Andrey Rudakov from Russia joined the Golden Glory team, multiple winners of eight men tournaments in the hardest league of competition in the world: the Absolute Fighting Championships (Kharitonov and Vovchanchin came from that organization). AFC works together now with Golden Glory and strong Russian young wrestlers will learn Stand Up in the Netherlands and the great strikers in Holland will learn more about the ground game (photo 17). It is unbelievable how much success Team Golden Glory gained and how famous they became worldwide, for more then seven years now Golden Glory is stronger then ever, lately Fred Royers (famous Dutch muay thai trainer) hooked up with Golden Glory. With master trainers like Cor Hemmers, Lucien Carbin, Dave Jonkers and Fred Royers and a lot of talented heavy weights this is a fighting factory spitting out champion after champion, guided by masterminds Ron Nyqvist, Bas Boon who already at young age promoted fights with Cor Hemmers like Aerts vs. Lobman, Ballentine vs. Dekker (who are all considered classics to this day) it's the most successful team out there, it's more then a team alone, it's a family.
Golden Glory really became famous when Ron, and Bas teamed up with Too Hot To Handle and made a show together at March 18th 2001, the biggest and best European fighting show people ever saw, till then. With the whole Golden Glory team fighting and winning every single fight it became the most successful event ever. A sold out crowd of over ten thousand in the famous Ahoy stadium in Rotterdam, the last fight of Ramon Dekkers would take place in Ahoy (he won by KO in round three over Marino del Florin) and since long time Ernesto Hoost fighting again on Dutch soil. Then after a huge promo spot being showed on four huge big screens about Golden Glory fighters, Ramon Dekkers and Rob Kaman presented a huge torch with the golden glory symbol. They gave this to the Golden Glory team (photo 18) to give their fighting spirit on to the new generation. It was a very emotional and electrifying moment. Golden Glory (two GG in red and yellow, see photo 19) means the following: The red G stands for blood/life power and the yellow G stands for fire/fighting spirit, the black Japanese writing in the middle stands for energy/strength all these elements for an elite fighting team. That's why nobody else then Rob Kaman and Ramon Dekkers past the torch to the Golden Glory team. Ron got the whole international press from martial arts magazines to Holland, from Brazil and America and Japan. The torch was specially made for this event. Commentators Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten were presenting the event live and it became the biggest MMA show Europe has ever seen. This was when Golden Glory was really put on the map, the start of an elite fighting team, the beginning of many successes to come (photo 20, 21). Golden Glory is currently working on a Golden glory clothing line and Asian websites, soon to be seen at GOLDEN GLORY (http://www.goldenglory.com) for more information contact
[email protected].
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