Apparently the Ultimate Women Challenge has not yet paid their fighters, as it appears a lawsuit has been filed against LHP Entertainment, Lyle Howry Productions and Lyle Howry himself on behalf of fighters Heather Clark, Angela Hayes, Barb Honchak, Angela Magana, Michelle Ould, Patricia Vidonic and Kaitlin Young.
To sum it up, the lawsuit asks for payment, as well as damages to compensate for the pay which was withheld, and that no 3rd party (such as an investor with a security lien) have a higher claim to the pay. It also asks that no biographical image (including names and likenesses) of the women be used. LHP and Lyle Howry have 20 days to respond from the date of the complaint, which was filed on March 14th.
As previously reported on MMA HQ, the complaint stated that the fighters were supposed to be paid $100 per day for each day they participated in the program. One fighter participated for 18 days and the other 6 fighters listed participated for a total of 34 days, from August 24 to September 26, 2010.
Per diems were supposed to be paid on a weekly basis, and it’s obviously been more than a week since the production period ends. (UWC therefore originally owed one fighter $1800 and several other fighters $3400 each.) Additional payments were supposed to be made for the fights. Winners of each weight class were supposed to receive $50,000 within 45 days of the end of production, and fighters were supposed to be paid sums ranging from $2,000 to $25,000 for additional fights which took place.
On December 21st, several of the fighters asked for a settlement which was agreed to by LHP on January 31st. It asked for the fees owed with an interest rate of 19.56% per year and liquidated damages of $13,360 (presumably to be split evenly among the women as additional compensation due to the hardship and delays), as well as medical expenses for an MRI which one fighter received due to an injury sustained on the show. None of the payments due were made. Therefore, a second settlement agreement was made, which included a fighter (who was not a part of the first settlement) as well as the other fighters previously mentioned. It asked for liquidated damages of $19,000, fees owed and payment for the MRI.
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josh
Ben Cartlidge
damanisme
Deathstriker
Bobsapp fan
Dominik
Shane
capt.ADK'er
Yael Grauer
Don Roach
this is just horrible . these fighters put their careers and their well being on the line and are getting ripped off . i wish more mma sites would bring this to the publics attention. its tough enough for women to get fights as it is , with out corrupt org. taking advantage of them
If we could only sue them for the all money they made us loose by not taking fights. Personally I would LOVE for this to all be over so I can finally CALL OUT the people involved and really tell them how I feel. Until then they can live with there own karma!
I totally feel you! You’d think if they didn’t have the money they would’ve just canceled the thing or waited until they did. The whole thing is so sad and sickening. Hopefully the media exposure will at least make people think twice when considering working with these guys in the future. I really hope you guys get paid!!!
Thanks Yael for covering this. You kinda get the feeling that Howry would have continued to run scams like this–hustling together other peoples’ talents and resources on little more than a smile and trying desperately to cash in before anyone catches on. Yeah, that’s a bit crookish.
What? Crookish is *totally* a word.
Anyways, here’s hoping that some form of recompense makes up for what has to be a couple of years of hell for these fighters.
Agreed! Thanks for reading.
Yael thanks for bringing this to light and thanks for covering a topic that I am sure many wish would of just been swept under the rug. I hope that each of these fighters get their money and I hope that this experience didn’t leave a bunch of bad feelings towards these types of events in the fighters minds because if someone could really pull a show like this together and make it work it would do huge things not only for the fighters involved but also for Women’s Mixed Martial Arts as a whole.
Thanks! I’ll update when I have more information.
Oh crap, I wrote this whole comment about my experience with this scumbag and somehow it disappeared :(
Anyway. I’m livid. I hope the girls press charges. They were held against their will, abused, mistreated on so many levels.
Lyle doesn’t have a pot to piss in. The girls will get their day in court, they will get their judgement, but they will never be able to get him to pay because he has nothing.
I urge the girls to press charges. Send this mofo to jail before he hurts anyone else.
hi Marika, were you on the show? We’ll keep you posted on details.
Looks like the tables have turned, if I were you I would look up this case, they have all doped charges, I guess their is more then one side of the story, maybe you should do your homework better.
This guy that represented them was a hack so called Lawyer, just like you are a hack so called journalist, that doesn’t print the troth or get the facts straight, I hope they come after you next, sense you stated facts that you did not research first!
You probably will not print this because you are one sided and do everything to get attention, you need it!!
hi John,
Not sure what doped charges or the troth are, but uh, thanks for commenting?
Wow – and so John J.: apparently YOU’VE done your homework and know more than everyone else, right? How easy it is for you to comment “sense” you can hide behind your keyboard. Geez…