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Randy Couture spent $500,000 fighting UFC in court, expects tough road for Georges St-Pierre
Randy Couture has a pretty good idea of what’s in store for Georges St-Pierre in his fight for contractual freedom.
“They’re going to hire the same lawyers and do the same thing to keep Georges in line and keep Georges fighting for their brand,” Couture on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.
The UFC Hall of Famer went toe-to-toe with a few of the lawyers representing the industry leader over a 13-month fight to achieve free agency. Multiple fronts opened, with now-former owners Zuffa suing then-champion Couture in Nevada and billionaire Mark Cuban suing Zuffa in Texas.
In a highly public “resignation” from the UFC in 2007, Couture cited ongoing disputes with management and a desire to put together a bout with heavyweight great Fedor Emelianenko. The UFC retorted: “The Natural” had violated his contract and owed two fights.
After victories on both sides in court, Couture and his longtime promoter were poised to spend a lot of time and money hashing the matter out. Couture saw the writing on the wall.
“I settled because I was 45 years old,” he said. “They were going to drag it out as long as they could and basically try to bankrupt me. I’d already spent $500,000 of my own money to pursue getting away and being able to make the biggest fight of that time happen.”
Couture can’t say whether St-Pierre will meet the same end, but he said the stakes are high in the latest legal dispute between a UFC star and the promotion.
“At the end of the day, it still boils down to the same issues,” he said. “This company has been signing fighters to coercive and literally awful contracts for years. It’s been one of the things that I’ve fought with them over since day one, since they bought the company, over ancillary rights, over (right to match) and retirement clauses, and having a little bit of leverage as their heavyweight champion when they bought the company, we fought over all these things. It’s one of the reasons I’m persona non grata with the company now.”
Former welterweight champ St-Pierre threw down the gauntlet Monday when he declared himself a free agent from the UFC, presumably able to begin negotiations with any promoter who might be interested in his services. Predictably, the UFC responded with a curt statement, indicating a courtroom was in the fighter’s future if he acted on his declaration.
“Georges St-Pierre remains under an existing agreement with Zuffa, LLC as his MMA promoter,” the statement read. “Zuffa intends to honor its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same.”
St-Pierre (25-2 MMA, 19-2 UFC), via his attorney, Jim Quinn, holds the position that St-Pierre is a free agent because the UFC breached a 2011 contract with the former champ when it didn’t offer him a fight within a certain timeframe after he signaled his intent to resume his career.
St-Pierre’s previous contract predates the UFC’s apparel deal with Reebok, which would prevent St-Pierre from fulfilling a lucrative sponsorship deal with Under Armour if he returned to the octagon. The legal question driving the dispute is whether St-Pierre’s previous contract will serve to free him – or simply bind him to – the remaining fights on his deal when he took a “hiatus” from the sport in 2013.
Couture questions whether the ex-welterweight champ might have tipped the scales in his favor when he stepped away from the octagon after a controversial title defense against Johny Hendricks at UFC 167. Yet he’s unsure how that would be legally interpreted.
“I never heard him say the words, ‘I’m going to retire,’ which obviously can affect how they handle the contract,” Couture said. “Generally, when you announce a retirement like that, it freezes your contract, so if you announce you’re going to retire and you have two fights left on that contract, then that’s going to freeze that contract, and you still owe the company those two fights if you decide to come out of retirement.
“Most contracts have a clock on them – in 18 months, we’ll give you six fights. Obviously, if he retired, then that clock freezes, and that time doesn’t tick away. I don’t see that was the case with Georges, but then how do you rule then if he wants to take a hiatus? He’s obviously not active and not going to fulfill the fights that are on the contract.”
Couture expects the UFC will file an injunction to keep St-Pierre from competing in other promotions. Beyond that, he’s unsure sure how the process will unfold. There could be much that goes unseen by the general public; St-Pierre was spotted on Wednesday in Las Vegas by MMAjunkie and claimed he was just “hanging out.”
Quinn maintains that St-Pierre wants to fight right now and simply wants a deal that reflects his value to the promotion. Whether that’s with the UFC or a competitor, he intends to restart his career.
“He’s perfectly happy to fight under the UFC banner, and under a UFC contract if they can negotiate a new contract,” Quinn told MMAjunkie. “If not, they have to look at other options.”
If St-Pierre is able to free himself from his contract, Couture said it could lend significant weight to a current movement to organize fighters, allowing them to bargain collectively for the rights that would make clear their contractual rights. A member of the MMA Fighters Association led by attorney Rob Maysey, the former heavyweight champ supports efforts to modify current federal law to include MMA in the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which protects boxers against unfair and coercive business practices.
Couture said St-Pierre’s presence would be welcome.
“As independent contractors, we have a lot of power if we unite, and the promotions like the UFC or WME don’t even know, to be honest,” Couture said. “They would have to listen, because without the product, without the fighters, there are no fights. It may take something that significant, to walk out, to pull out, to get them to change their business practices, because their business practices aren’t fair. The fact that they sold that company for $4.4 billion is a big wakeup call for all the fighters who’ve been lending their blood, sweat and tears to building that brand over the years.”
Couture ultimately ran out of time when he chose to stand against the UFC, but sees several parallels between his case and that of St-Pierre. Whether they have the same resources and desire to stay the course is a question that will be answered soon enough.
“A lot of these problems get solved with these contracts and the promotion’s power over fighters if they would simply amend the Ali Act to incorporate MMA,” Couture said. “If Georges is able to pull this off, then it’s good for us as fighters. Maybe these contracts and this organization isn’t as ironclad as it seems to think it is.”
ARTICLE: http://mmajunkie.com/2016/10/randy-...ourt-expects-tough-road-for-georges-st-pierre
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