Think you’ve had a bad day recently? Try dealing with Jon Fitch’s past 24 hours.
The top 3 welterweight went from being contracted to fighting Akihiro Gono at UFC 94, to having the bout contract cancelled and having himself dropped from the UFC, dealing directly with Lorenzo Fertitta, to being back in the UFC and back into his fight with Gono.
This whole debacle between Dana White and the guys at the American Kickboxing Academy gym bring several interesting points to the surface.
The key issue was in fact the video game licensing agreement. As much as Dana White wants to say the video game agreement had nothing to do with it and rather was an issue with fighter management, we all know that is not accurate. According to White:
“No, no, no. It has nothing to do with an agreement. It doesn’t have to do with Jon Fitch either,” continued White. “I like Jon Fitch. I’ve never had a bad word with Jon Fitch. The problem is with the idiots that run AKA. I won’t use any names; the idiots know who they are.”
Those “idiots” that manage Jon Fitch actually suggested Fitch and his fellow AKA members sign the video game agreement, but it was actually Fitch who held off on signing the deal because he didn’t like the way it was presented and the strong-arm, bullying tactics that Dana White was using.
“It’s 100 percent a power play. Our management team is one of the toughest and best management teams out there. Honestly a lot other management teams look to us as far as what we’re doing and what we’re saying about other contracts and he knows that. So his answer is to shut down that management team.
It’s on me, not on my management. He tries to blame this and put this off on management but my management was telling me to sign this video game deal. But out of principle, I didn’t.”
Once Jon Fitch called UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta and dealt directly with him, bypassing UFC President Dana White, the two were able to work out and agreement that included Fitch signing the video game deal and returning to the UFC roster. The issue was never with management, although I do not doubt Dana White’s hatred for most MMA managers, it was solely with the licensing deal. White can’t resist and ignore working with fight managers, especially not Zinkin Entertainment who represent his golden-boy, Chuck Liddel.
The video game licensing deal is definitely at the heart of the issue here. Zuffa had promised an exclusivity contract to THQ for players likenesses in making the upcoming UFC Undisputed video game. The problem is, White made that promise when he didn’t yet have the means to do so as many fighters had not yet signed away that right.
In the long run, having a lifetime likeness deal to the video game isn’t a huge deal for fighters. Fitch contends they tried to get a 5 or 10 year deal instead, but that is just a technicality. In 10 years most of these current fighters will either be out of MMA or in the twilight of their careers and not heavily desired for other MMA video games.
How will Dana White react to having Lorenzo Fertitta override his decision? An interesting question that I haven’t seen anyone else discuss yet. While Dana White has no problem ceding over control what he refers to as the “business side of things,” White still vocally maintains control over the fighter side of things.
All day yesterday, Dana White made no bones about his refusal to work with AKA in the future and was clearly trying to send a message to other current and future UFC prospects on what it takes to remain with the organization. Jon Fitch, more-or-less, went “over the bosses head” and didn’t talk to Dana White at all, instead dealing directly with Fertitta.
After working things out between Fertitta and Fitch’s management, Fitch returned to the UFC promotion. To me, this comes across as Lorenzo basically saying, “yeah, Dana can be a bit idiot at times and we really didn’t want you to leave.” I’ll be curious to see what, if any, reaction White has to “cover his tracks” over this situation. White clearly can’t remain quiet, so it will be interesting to see what kind of spin he puts on the whole thing.
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tom b
Ben Cartlidge
Shawn Smith
JStein
StuDog
LaM
Angelina
Doc, it pretty obvious what happened. Dana needs a vacation man, hes clearly overworked and hes losing his mind. He made a mistake with the fighters likeness rights, then at the last minute he had to get everyone to sign the contract. After talking to like 50 people who were ALL probably nervous about signing a contract with a LIFETIME duration, he was probably really annoyed and impatient.
By the time he got to Fitch and Fitch flat out said no, i could picture Dana saying something like, “i dont have time for this ****, just shut your mouth and sign the ****** contract or your out of the UFC.” Which ofcourse is the strong arm tactics Fitch was talking about.
Dana was obviously not thinking straight at the time, but even so, things like this should never happen, its so personal and unprofessional. Thats Danas real problem, he doest act professionally at all, so Fitch talked to Fertitta and cooler heads prevailed.. Thats all that happened..
Get your mind right Dana.. seriously..
This whole situation is so moronic on so many levels.
First, Dana White has always touted how much he likes Josh Koscheck, especially after stepping in to fight Alves on such short notice. Now, he’s on the verge of cutting the guy?
Second, what about a guy like Cain Velasquez?…who is considered a real top heavyweight prospect!!! Just because there is an apparent “4-man heavyweight championship tournament” going on, does not mean that management should sh-t on every other guy in that division.
So, what happens after an undisputed heavyweight champ gets crowned?
Are we ever going to see:
Couture/Nog
Couture/Mir
Gonzaga/Mir
Gonzaga/Nog
Gonzaga/Lesnar
Because apparently they are making it seem as if this is it…these are the guys…and the rest are just chumps fighting for leftovers…and I totally disagree.
Anyone remember a guy named Cheick Kongo???
What about Shane Carwin or even Christian Wellisch? oh yea…he’s also AKA..too bad for him…
Who the f–k has Frank Mir beaten in the last 2 years? Antoni Hardonk? r u kidding me?
I’ll tell you guys this…all of a sudden the UFC heavyweight division isn’t looking so stacked, and IMO, from a financial standpoint…they desperately need to have a strong one, especially considering that they don’t have the #1 fighter in the world (Fedor) and they have recently lost most of their recognizable heavies in the last year.
Anderson Silva is not going to headline every PPV
Heavyweights are what people want, and good ones at that…
this current roster is going to get old real fast…because I certainly don’t see any hurry or urgency on the UFC’s part, in creating most of the matchups us fans want to see, that I listed above.
Man, i saw Lethal weapon 1 for the first time in like 15 years, what an amazing movie that was! so ahead of its time, there was barely a scene without something cool happening or some great banter, catch phrases, etc..
I felt the need to share this clip with you guys of the end fight sequence with Mel and Gary Busey. Mel goes for a sloppy armbar and get rolled then hes able to secure the triangle in wet blue jeans, thats pretty impressive hehe. Blast from the past guys.. enjoy..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnSHQHXvaTU
man that video make me wonder about who put that fight scene together. it looks like Mel Gibson and Gary Busey are both somewhat trained, but i dont know if they trained those specific moves for that scene (a la fight choreographer) or if they both had a clue and kind of freestyled it a bit. i skimmed through both guys wiki pages and looked it up on imdb and nether site says anything about ether guy and martial arts training.
RJ, i was watching some Busey videos yesterday and in one of them he was talking about that fight scene. They had 4 different martial arts guys representing different disciplines who trained them for the scene, ya it was choreographed. Tae Kwon do, jailhouse rock (style developed in prison), Ju Jitsu they actually had a GRACIE as the trainer how cool is that? forget his name, but i never heard of him before. And there was one more style which ive never heard of, but they put alot of work into that fight scene and it came out great!
Talk about ahead of its time eh? if that movie came out 10 years later, it would have still been ahead of its time!
hehe… nice clip BV, Ive never seen that movie, heck I wasnt even born yet when that movie came out Im pretty sure.
@Lam
Bro, if you havent seen that movie, one of these days you should check it. Classic movie, then they decided to go the way of comedy with the lethal weapon movies (which was good too) but the original was just crazy. While your at it, you might wanna check out Die Hard 1.. i think it came out in the same year too..
wow Lam your young bro lol, that movie came out in 1987. i was 9 when it came out, so i had to wait to see it till it came out on VHS (yeah i said VHS) because there was no way my parents would let me see it in the theater. now i feel real old lol.
haha… I think I will watch lethal weapon it sounds freakin sweet, but I already saw die hard when I was younger. BTW I was born in 1989. Man I realize how awesome DVD’s are, I had to watch some educational videos for school and everything from the actual video itself to the sound quality just scream early 90′s and 80′s.
lol i still own a VCR and i still use it, but for one reason and one reason only….. Zero:Misled Youth….. those who know what i mean, will know what i mean… lol for those who dont and like skateboarding, you must get this video. i guess its ok to get it on DVD but dont be proud of your self for owning it on that format lol.
So who saw Strikeforce tonight?? not putting up any spoilers, but i just felt that it looked like a solid card, but the performances didnt deliver. Strange, because the last Strikeforce event card looked weak, but the fights were great.
I hope they manage to stay around because orgs are dropping like flies and soon were gonna have nothing but the UFC which means less MMA on average…
how did you watch it? i couldnt find it anywhere, TVU, justin, the Fightnetwork. i guess it sounds like i didnt miss a whole lot eh?
It was on Justin RJ, ok from now on, im putting up links for every event. The thing is, you can never be 100% sure until the event actually starts. So if an event just started and you cant find it, check back here and i would have put up a link.
Nah you didnt miss much.. Scott Smith and Terry Martin did a reenactment of the Kimbo/Petruzelli fight LOL. Southworth got cut late in the 1st round and they called the fight before the 2nd round started..