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CEO of FEG Tanikawa announces legal action against SappTOKYO October 11 - At the New Takanawa Prince Hotel, the organizers of the international martial arts event known as K-1 held a press conference in response to a statement released by well-known K-1 fighter Bob Sapp.On the evening of October 10th, a representative of Bob Sapp made an announcement to the press concerning the release of Bob Sapp from his contract with K-1. In response, Sadaharu Tanikawa, CEO of FEG called for a press conference where he announced that legal action will be taken against Sapp. Tanikawa along with FEG legal representative Atsushi Igarashi of TMI Legal met with the press at the New Takanawa Prince Hotel to discuss the situation. Tanikawa had received a fax in Japanese from Michael Connett which basically stated that due to K-1 being in breach of contract, the two contracts that currently exist between K-1 and Sapp were to be considered defunct. FEG's official response was that though it does the martial arts world no good to make public the problems between the organization and it's fighters, they will be clear and firm in response to the callous one-sided argument for the dissolution of the contract. Another reason to make a public statement is that we don't want to accused of not responding. According to the fax, Sapp was not paid money he is owed and he is also supposed to have received a fight offer, both of which the fax claims didn't happen. FEG says "That is totally untrue. FEG (K-1) continued to maintain talks with Mr. Sapp even after the Amsterdam incident [in which Sapp had left the arena just before his scheduled bout] and we offered him a fight for the Sapporo event. Of course he had no place in the Final Elimination held last month, but we wanted him for a Superfight at the upcoming World Grand Prix Final." They added that they allowed him in the past to fight for other organizations such as New Japan Wrestling, PRIDE, and Michinoku Pro-Wrestling and therefore didn't interfere with his ability to gain income as was stated in the fax. "The contract is not void and FEG (K-1) still owns worldwide exclusive rights at the present time, so we will bring legal proceedings against Mr. Sapp sometime this week concerning violations of the contract, and other damages as well. If he accepts any offer from another organization it will be a 100% breach of contract. We will also likely be forced to bring legal action against any organization to make such an offer." Mr. Igarashi stated "The case will be handled in Japan. The lawsuit will make clear the existence of a contract between the parties and will ask for damages pursuant to breach of contract. The amount is being decided at this time." Apparently, Sapp talked to a FEG staff member about appearing in a pro-wrestling event this upcoming November as well as a related martial-arts event on New Year's eve. If so, Sapp would be facing an even bigger problem than the current situation. In a similar turn of events, Tanikawa also mentioned that FEG will be bringing legal action against Gilbert Melendez, who had signed a multiple fight deal with K-1 and was scheduled to appear in August 5th's HERO'S event and pulled a no-show. Rani Yahya took his place and the event went on as scheduled, however Melendez then participated in the August 26th PRIDE Bushido event resulting in a breach of contract an action for which FEG will ask for damages. Tanikawa was visibly upset as he related the pending legal action against both Sapp and Melendez and told the press in attendance that he was deeply saddened by this turn of events and that he hopes that this kind of situation doesn't happen again. |
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Announcement regarding scheduled Bob Sapp's no-showTo All Press,In regards to the incident in which Mr. Bob Sapp didn’t fight in the Amsterdam Arena on May 13th, there have been conflicting reports including that he had been unwell. The K-1 organization would like to set the record straight regarding the no-show: Mr. Bob Sapp still has the exclusive long-term fighting contract with the K-1 organization. Based on the contract, Mr. Sapp arrived in The Netherlands on May 10th, attended the event press conference, the Fuji Television event promotion, and the event opening ceremony. However, before the event Mr. Sapp made demands which were absolutely impossible to meet. Even though we did everything possible to persuade him to stay, he suddenly left the venue just before his fight sporting a bandage. We consider his behavior as both unprofessional and disappointing. In order to prevent such incidents, we will do our best to handle our fighters better and arrange fights more carefully. Lastly, we would like to express our great appreciation to Mr. Peter Aerts and his devotion to K-1 as he did us the greatest favor of accepting the fight against Mr. Hoost with only one hour's notice before the fight. And also we would like to extend our most sincere apologies to the 20,000 fans who came to see the Ernesto Hoost versus Bob Sapp bout, and to the millions of fans around the world who were looking forward to this match-up. Sincerely, K-1 Event Producer Sadaharu Tanikawa |