Keith Jardine, who fought and won during the Nemesis Fighting debace, has made a personal commitment to make sure the promoters who scammed the fighters either pay up or do some jail time.
“I know some people stayed on this card because I was on it, and they would ask John (Madrid, Jardine’s manager) ‘Well, Keith’s still on it right?’ and they would stay on the card because of me, and that makes me feel really bad,” Jardine told MMAWeekly Radio. “So I’m doing my best, doing my part to gain control of the production of the fights to maybe get it on pay-per-view and get all the money to pay the fighter’s purses.”
“There was no commission ... it was just incredible.”
“(The next) morning I went to breakfast around 10:30 or something like that and sat down with some of the guys and Tim Fields (one of the promoters along with Bob Fill). The nerve of this guy to sit down and have breakfast like nothing’s wrong."
“So I’m sitting with Tim Fields and he says ‘well, I’m going to go up to the room. We’re going to do something, and get the money together, and we’ll meet you guys at this little arena in 15 minutes.’ ... I joked with the guys and it was just a joke, ‘You know what, these guys are pretty smart. They get us all sitting here, while they’re making their way out the back door.’ It turns out that’s what they were doing.”
As the fighters realized something was going on, Jardine’s teammate at Jackson’s MMA, Isaac Vallie-Flagg, went into the hotel and caught the promoter on his way out of town.
“He’s all packed, everything on top of his suitcase ready to go, he’s got his shoes on without any socks, and he’s out of town. Isaac just caught him, so he started writing everybody’s checks at that point.”
The checks were no good anyway, but it bought him enough time to promptly skip town.
“My #1 thing is to get the production and find a way to recoup the money for these fighters ... If that doesn’t happen, by all means, I want to see these guys in Federal prison and I’m going to get their names out there so they can never work any kind of scam again."
“I met with the Secret Service actually and they’re really eager to help us out. They think the criminal charges should be pretty easy against these guys.”
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