Marloes Coenen can't bring herself to watch her loss to Miesha Tate yet.
But if there's any hope she's felt since the loss of her title and subsequent release from Strikeforce, it's from an overwhelming show of support from fans.
"I didn't know if people liked me," she told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "I was afraid that they didn't."
A week after her loss and sudden firing, Coenen is still processing what's undoubtedly been a trying time in her life and fighting career. The arm triangle that Tate caught her in is only part of it, but it's a part with significant sting.
"I'm not mad at myself, but I'm disappointed," Coenen said of her fourth-round loss at "Strikeforce and M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Henderson," which took place July 30 in suburban Chicago.
On top of that, she's found herself in the middle of a dispute between her management company, Golden Glory, and Strikeforce's new parent company, Zuffa, LLC. And while her association with the Holland-based fight team undoubtedly contributed to her exit from a promotion that until very recently recognized her as a champion, she fully stands by them.
"My management has proven themselves over and over again," Coenen said. "I've been with them for 10 years. If they tell me to do it a certain way, I will do it because I trust them completely."
UFC president Dana White said this past weekend that Coenen and three other Golden Glory fighters – Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem, UFC heavyweight Jon Olav Einemo and Strikeforce heavyweight Valentijn Overeem (Alistair Overeem's brother) – were cut because the team's management insisted that Zuffa route payments through them as opposed to paying each fighter individually.
"It's not the way we do business," White said. "It's not how it works in the U.S. You don't pay the manager and the manager pays the fighter. You pay the fighter, and the fighter pays the manager."
The executive said standard practice was to route payments through the athletic commission overseeing an event with that commission distributing checks to fighters at the end of the night, a procedure that, in fact, varies from state to state.
Shortly after White's comments, Coenen posted a Twitter message with a picture of a check from Zuffa cut directly to her, and she said today that she's been paid directly even prior to Strikeforce's change in ownership.
Coenen defended Golden Glory's policy by saying it not only comes out of practical necessity but helps fighters in the long run, as well.
"In America, you pay taxes, but in the Netherlands, you pay a lot of tax because we've got the health system," she said. "That's really good in the Netherlands. If you go to university, it's only 1,500 Euros a year; it's like $2,000. There's a reason we have these high taxes, and not only do we get [deductions] straightaway in the states – we have to pay tax in the Netherlands. Of course, we have to pay our trainers and our management, as well.
"If we deposit here in the bank, it will take seven or eight weeks before we get the money. So for us, it's way more convenient for us to have it done by the management, who will do all the tax stuff for us, and then we get the money."
Coenen also cited several instances where Golden Glory went out of pocket to pay her purse or necessary expenses when a promotion did not.
"When I went to ADCC 2005, the management paid because they only gave me one ticket and one room, and they've paid for my trainer and the room," she said. "They never asked for that money back."
A storm brewing
Even before her fight with Tate, Coenen had a feeling that the only way she could save her job was with a win. On the day of weigh-ins, news had broken that Alistair Overeem had been cut from the promotion. It was an unsettling omen as she readied herself for a fight that both she and Tate saw as critical to their future – White had repeatedly hinted the future wasn't bright for women's MMA under Strikeforce's new ownership.
"You hear everything," she said. "Alistair, in my opinion, is the top heavyweight fighter in the world, and if they do something like that to him, and you know what they think about the women, yeah, well, it doesn't make you feel that comfortable and safe."
She felt something was wrong even before that when she was supposed to attend the event's pre-fight press conference. She was told to report to the fighter hotel's lobby at 9:30 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. shuttle to the media gathering. When she showed up at 9:55, the van had already left.
"We wanted to go with somebody else, and they said, 'No, no, you don't have to come any more. It's already done and you can stay [at the hotel],'" Coenen said. "Really weird to me, because you don't leave the champion out of the press conference. If you say you will leave at 10 o'clock, you won't leave at 9:55. That happened throughout the entire week, that kind of stuff.
"It was the fifth time I fought for Strikeforce, and it was the first time I missed a press conference. I've never missed anything for Strikeforce or things I had to do for the media."
When she was informed five days after the fight that she'd been released as the result of her loss, it confirmed what she suspected already: not only was she collateral damage in a political struggle between Zuffa and Golden Glory, but her firing was a preview of coming attractions for women's MMA.
"To me, it's a sign that they will not continue with women's fighting," she said. "I believe more and more girls will be cut. Then I heard Scott Coker on the Mauro Ranallo radio show, and he said that they will cut people who lose.
"To me, that's weird because so many guys have already lost, and they keep them around. Would they cut K.J. Noons after his last fight? Of course they wouldn't. Of course they wouldn't cut Fabricio Werdum. So it's evidence that it's all politics and it has nothing to do with me."
Regrouping
On Tuesday she returned to her home in Amsterdam after a vacation in Table Rock Lake, Mo., and is determined to keep representing women's MMA through fighting. She has interest in fighting at an October event promoted by her management company, and the resurgent ProElite has expressed interest in her for a November event. But as of now, she doesn't have a specific booking.
White has since said that he would be open to working with Golden Glory again if the team changed its stance on fighter payments. Coenen, though, said that would lead to a bigger tax bill for her at the end of the year.
While it looks like her days under the Strikeforce banner are over, Coenen said her time with the promotion was an amazing experience. Even with all the difficulties of the past week, she praised the promotion's new owners for the order they brought to events.
And while she's undoubtedly like to be back inside the hexagon on a path to winning her title back, she can pursue her goals elsewhere.
"I think it's very important to have an organization that has a television platform because in my opinion, it's important that girls see us fight, and we inspire other women," she said. "Not like they have to step into the cage, but it would be nice if they started working out and find their inner-strength and become more confident."
Soon, she'll buck up enough to watch her fight, see what went wrong, and start all over again.
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