No Holds Barred: Bas Boon on 'DREAM 18 - Special NYE 2012' Presented by Glory Sports International

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Bas Boon, the vice-president of business development of Glory Sports International.

It was announced at a press conference Thursday in Tokyo that Glory Sports International will be responsible for presenting 'DREAM 18 - Special NYE 2012', a New Year's Eve MMA mega-event at the Saitama Super Arena on December 31. The card will include ten MMA fights and three kickboxing matches. So far, three Japanese fighters have been confirmed for this event: the Dream featherweight champion Hiroyuki Takaya, the 'Crusher' Tatsuya Kawajiri, and the lightweight contender Satoru Kitaoka. Many more fighters on this card, including international fighters, will be announced in the coming weeks.

We spoke with Bas Boon about this historic event by Skype on Friday (Thursday night in New York). Of course, the issue of the problems which have caused the previous management of Dream not to run any more shows, such as fighters not getting paid, were among the first things we discussed.

"We cleaned up the mess," said Bas Boon in this interview. "The Dream brand is revived. The New Year's Eve show basically is going to take place under Dream 18. It is clean. There is a new management. Of course, we are going to use a lot of the old producers because the production of Dream was out of this planet, and that's certainly a thing we want to maintain."

We also discussed several other major kickboxing cards which Glory is putting on, including the Glory 3 Rome 'Final 8' (70 kilogram/154 pound) one-night tournament at the famed PalaLottomatica arena in Rome on November 3, and the Glory 4 Tokyo 'Heavyweight Grand Slam' 16-man one-night tournament at the Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Greater Tokyo, on December 2.

The revival of the popular New Year's Eve show in Japan featuring both MMA and kickboxing is already getting major attention around the world, as is the continuing expansion of Glory Sports International. "It's pretty intense," commented Bas Boon on all this activity, a fact which no doubt will please many fans of the combat sports.

You can play or download No Holds Barred at http://nhbnews.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-26T01_05_48-07_00 and http://archive.org/details/NoHoldsBarredBasBoonOndream18-SpecialNye2012PresentedByGlory. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher (http://landing.stitcher.com/?vurl=noholdsbarred).

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=150801513&s=143441.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer by Ian Snow(http://magicpumpkinstudios.com).

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship (http://onefc.com). ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com(http://onefc.com).

MMA World Expo (http://www.mmaworldexpo.com). The mixed martial arts community comes to New York City December 1 and 2 for the fourth annual MMA World Expo, featuring an amateur MMA tournament, the Big Apple BJJ Open, MMA fighters, seminars with world-class trainers, vendors, panel discussions, and much more. The 2012 MMA World Expo takes place Saturday, December 1, and Sunday, December 2, at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. For more information, go to (http://www.mmaworldexpo.com).

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Thanks, Eddie Goldman http://eddiegoldman.com

Can't wait to listen to this....

You slay me Eddie with the access to the kinda people you have in the world of MMA. All of over the world in fact. You scoop everybody with your interviews all the time. It's really unbelievable.

I hope if I get back to New York sometime we can get together for a few brewskie's at one of your many favorite watering holes. Are you still rating the hot NYC beer wenches online??? Haha.

You 'are' da' MAN sir! Happy to be here with you.

good interview, if you and dag do meet up it would be nice to hear you inteview him and talk about our forum.

I'll give this a listen while I watch the SFL card. Gonna be a good day.

I'll be listening to this soon.

Thanks again to all. This card represents a very important development. MMA all over Asia is booming, while ratings plummet and one card after another gets cancelled in the U.S. This Dream/Glory card was a welcome surprise, and will likely have our favorite announcer trilling loudly as the New Year arrives.

I actually just got a pre-sale offer from an internet vendor in my email box for tickets to this event the other day. The event is proceeding duly indeed. I hope they can manage to land on Japanese TV.

Man, I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do! Can't wait to get home an check this out.

All you have to do is master journalism, publishing, technology, and the Internet, and world politics and economics, and travel the world and network for 20 years, and drink beer with sexy bartenders. Oh yeah, and wrestle in high school.

nhbnews wrote:All you have to do is master journalism, publishing, technology, and the Internet, and world politics and economics, and travel the world and network for 20 years, and drink beer with sexy bartenders. Oh yeah, and wrestle in high school.

Well I've been internetting since I was 10, I've got my share if bartender notches, I love beer, studied about 2 years of econ, and I box? Think I could get an interview with Fedor?!!


keep it up man!

Got to an event when he is there and do it. They have translaters, too.

Eddie Goldman: The Conscience of Combat Sports and Godfather of MMA Media.

I´m super excited about having a european promotion among the top dogs.

Mikal wrote:Man, I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do! Can't wait to get home an check this out.

Eddie is a legend. This is from The Smashing Machine documentary about Mark Kerr.

Awesome interview as always. Just finished listening. So glad MMA in Japan will return on NYE. Best MMA news I heard all year. Can't wait to be watching DREAM/Glory in 2013 as well.