Nemesis Fighting promoter responds to unpaid fighter scandal
In what may well wind up in a Florida courtroom, Nemesis Fighting Promotions owner Tim Fields spoke exclusively to ProMMAnow.com’s…
In what may well wind up in a Florida courtroom, Nemesis Fighting Promotions owner Tim Fields spoke exclusively to ProMMAnow.com’s Susan Cingari to share his side of the story, following allegations by several fighters, including Keith Jardine, Eliot Marshall, and Paul Buentello, that they haven’t been paid for competing on the Dec. 11 card in the Dominican Republic.
When I arrived there (at the hotel), there were no tickets at the Barcelo, nobody could purchase a ticket at the Barcelo, and there were no tickets delivered to be sold, Fields said. Actually, no tickets for the event to be sold even showed up till 12:30 the day of the event from the ticket company.
Fields, whom we reached thanks to an anonymous reader tip, also said that the problems were exacerbated by the resort’s refusal to allow Nemesis to advertise in the hotel lobby, near restaurants, and other gathering places.
That was the issue of mine with Bob (Fill, his partner in Nermesis). Why was that not cleared? We should have all these banners, and no one at this resort knew there was a fight going down at the convention center since there was nothing around.
So it got to be around 7:30. I walked down to the convention center to see how ticket sales were going and at 9:00 people started coming in… at that time I had heard that they had sold $14,000 in tickets out of about a half a million … I spoke with Bob down at the Barcelo Convention Center and said, ‘Look, if we don’t have enough money to pay these fighters, we have to cancel and refund the tickets. And at that point he told me, ‘Nah, its okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. We’re going ahead with the fight.’
The fight card was incredible. The whole night, unbelievable fights.”
I didn’t have any responsibility for the fighters. My name was not on the checking account. There was over $250,000 invested, and I can’t tell you where that $250,000 went, where they spent it all on.
ProMMAnow.com would emphasize that this is only one side of the story and welcomes the opportunity to speak to Bob Fill, who at the time of writing this article could not be reached. The Nemesis website account is currently suspended.