It's Showtime and K-1 Troubles Heat Up, Legal Proceedings On the Horizon?

On the heels of the announcement that K-1 will be returning with a 63 kg. tournament on June 25th,
the struggle between the embattled Japanese promotion and It's Showtime has been taken to a new level.

Competition between the two promotions has heated up the past week, as It's Showtime made its intent to expand into the Japanese market clear. Any thoughts that the move would go unchecked were quickly put to rest, as it was made evident that fighters competing for It's Showtime would likely be unable to compete under the K-1 banner.

Promotional rifts are nothing new to fans of the fight game, but this situation is greatly complicated by the struggles FEG has had in compensating fighters. Plainly, they owe a number of fighters money and some of those fighters not only fight for It's Showtime, but are also managed in-house by the Dutch organization. With the lines drawn between the two promotions, it seems that It's Showtime is now looking into legal recourse.

Simon Rutz released a statement on the promotion's official website:

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.

In full, the statement goes on to name specific fighters that are owed money by FEG. Top 70 kg. fighter Giorgio Petrosyan, It's Showtime heavyweight champion Hesdy Gerges, Daniel Ghita, and Tyrone Spong are just a few among the fighters named.

The potential for legal action in this situation doesn't come as much of a surprise, but it really is difficult to say what the long term ramification of this struggle may be. K-1 is looking to limp back into the kickboxing world, and this is certainly another obstacle in the way. Meanwhile, it is very possible that It's Showtime could run into some obstacles of their own in trying to break into the Japanese market.