Organized Crime Connections Could Put a Halt to Fights in Amsterdam

After this weekend's "It's Showtime" event there has been a lot of buzz about the event itself, including the fights and future fights for the winners and losers coming out of the show. A curveball was thrown on Wednesday when the Mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan spoke out against martial arts events taking place in the city, citing the "undesirables" involved with the fight game, from the spectators to the fighters all the way up to managers and promoters.

Local law enforcement claims to have audited certain "VIPs" from the upcoming Ultimate Glory show being promoted by Golden Glory, as well as this past weekend's It's Showtime event, and found what they claim was an alarming amount, a majority, of the audited VIPs had past convictions ranging from drugs and weapons to violence and organized crime connections. This, of course, isn't the first we've heard this year about organized crime in Amsterdam, after discussion about Badr Hari and his dubious connections after his night club fighter earlier this year. So this isn't a shock.

Van der Laan is the new mayor of Amsterdam, so a newer elected official promising to clean up a city is nothing new, especially a city like Amsterdam whose noteriety spans the globe for their drug and prostitution policies.

We'll have to keep a close eye on this situation, as van der Laan is looking to outright ban these events from his city, and outside of Japan, the Netherlands is one of the true hotbeds for kickboxing, with Amsterdam being the capitol city outside of Tokyo.