On Monday, Georges St-Pierre declared war on the UFC, said he was a free agent and explained that his lawyer had torn up his contract with the fight promotion.
On Thursday, that lawyer, James Quinn, explained exactly why he and his fighter had gone nuclear on the UFC.
“I’ve done a lot of work in sports. When I read that contract, I was blown away by how restrictive it is,” Quinn told MMAFighting.com. “It’s a pretty nice form of slavery.”
Describing the contract like it was “something out of the 1940s,” Quinn elaborated, “They’re basically tying him up for life. They have no rights and they own all of his licensing and all the other things. It’s unheard of in the other professional sports. And they won’t get away with it forever.”
Zuffa, the UFC’s parent company, seemed unruffled by St-Pierre’s and his lawyer’s antics and said Monday that the fighter was still under contract.
“Zuffa intends to honor its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same,” the company said in a statement.
St-Pierre, who has been out of action since 2013, clearly believes he’s no longer subject to the contract he signed with the UFC in 2011. He pointed to one specific provision as the key to his argument: According to St-Pierre, his contract allows him to set a 10-day deadline by which time the UFC must schedule a fight.
After the UFC was sold to WME-IMG for $4 billion in July, St-Pierre, with Quinn’s help, officially set the 10-day deadline, and the best the UFC could come up with was a last-minute offer to fight Robbie Lawler at an unspecified date and time.
Quinn says the Lawler fight did not satisfy the deadline’s requirements because it was too vague, and thus his client should be a free agent.
In all likelihood, St-Pierre and Quinn are using the threat of free agency as leverage in their negotiations with the UFC, but the battle illustrates the tricky situation the UFC finds itself in with its fighters after the lucrative sale.
In the immediate aftermath of the sale, Conor McGregor realized the value of his stardom and extracted startling concessions from the UFC. Even though president Dana White repeatedly said McGregor had to defend his featherweight title, McGregor forced the organization’s hand and will instead fight for the lightweight title against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in New York in November.
McGregor’s power play infuriated his archenemy, Jose Aldo, who is threatening to retire and recently met with White.
“I didn’t come here just wanting to cancel my contract or to be released,” Aldo said about the meeting, according to FoxSports.com.
“I came here because I had a lot on my chest, I had a lot of things I wanted to say and I thought saying them in person was the professional approach, the proper approach to take with them, so I thank them for their time and for the opportunity to get things off my chest. What the future will hold, nobody knows. We’ll have to wait and see.”
And now the UFC has to deal with a pissed-off St-Pierre, the greatest welterweight of all time.