Couture advocates for MMAFA, criticizes Smith and Spearhead

Mixed martial arts has reached mainstream sports status. However, unlike mainstream professional sports like football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, and golf, MMA does not have a players association or union.

In 2009 Robert Maysey founded the MMAFA, which seeks to extend the Muhammad Ali Act to mixed martial arts. Their aim is to keep fighters as independent contractors, establish an independent sanctioning and ranking system, and then let the free market do its thing. If you want to have champion Conor McGregor fight #1 contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, then promoters bid for the right, and whoever offers the highest purse gets to put on the fight. A bill supported by Congressman and retired fighter Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is currently before the house now. The MMAFA is also a force behind the Federal anti-trust suit against the UFC, which is ongoing.

In August of 2016, baseball agent Jeff Borris established the PFA; he sought to have UFC fighters reclassified as employees from their current independent contractor status, and form a union. He grandly announced there would be a fighter board in place shortly, but later amended that, saying he did not want to offer names, for fear of retaliation. His most high-profile fighter, Leslie Smith, apologized for introducing him to other fighters and severed ties, over a perceived violation of privacy. His attorney too severed ties. Borris flatly denied leaking any fighter support information. But little has been heard from him in ages. You can stick a fork in Jeff Borris.

In November of 2016, a group of five fighters announced the formation of the MMAAA, which seeks to form a players association exclusively of UFC fighters, and then petition the league for a 600% increase in the amount of revenue that goes to fighters. The route to the raise was described as a strategy that had to remain secret. The groups funding was also described as a secret. It is widely believed that the MMAAA is financed by CAA, Pepsi to UFC owner Endeavor’s Coke. And it’s widely believed that the MMAAA was created by Bjorn Rebney, not known as a progressive promoter. Tim Kennedy emerged as a sometime spokesperson for the effort, but has said nothing of late. The fork is poised.

The latest effort is UFC women’s bantamweight Leslie Smith Project Spearhead, undertaken with attorney Lucas Middlebrook, among others. The group seeks to organize UFC fighters into a certified labor union.

UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture is part of the MMAFA and appeared recently on Submission Radio to advocate for the original organizing group, and to criticize Project Spearhead generally, and Smith specifically.

We spoke again to Congress, to the full committee this time,” said Couture. “It was very well received. We have 65 signatures in support of the amendment with Congress. I think we’re very close to getting a vote with Congress. Once we get a vote with Congress and it’s approved there by the NRC and commerce commission, we’ll go to the house and it will go to vote with the senators. So that will be the next step. We’re waiting on the vote right now with Congress, and then we start talking to senators and getting approved in the Senate. That’s probably going to be a little bit bigger challenge. The senators could be a little more elusive and a little more difficult to deal with, but I’m very hopeful and optimistic. I think that the lobbying efforts that the UFC has put forth can maybe slow us down, but I don’t think they can prevent us from getting the Ali Act amended. It’s just obvious to everybody that we speak to that it needs to happen.

I’ve had no contact with Leslie since she’s launched Spearhead. She obviously got a lot of her information from being part of the MMAFA, and she’s always kind of in some ways created a division, been a bit divisive, which is why she’s not part of the MMAFA anymore. I think the unionization effort is the wrong model. It only takes care of fighters that are part of the UFC, doesn’t change the sport, it doesn’t eliminate the balance or affect the balance of power for fighters in their ability to negotiate. If they get recognized as employees and are able to get a collective bargaining agreement with the UFC, then that might help the UFC fighters a little bit, but even then, it still leaves all the power of the sanctioning and the promoting in the hands of one person, the UFC. So, I think it’s short-sighted, I think it’s a bit selfish, honestly.

“I don’t think she’s considering fighters across the board and all the promotions in the entire sport. The union model doesn’t fit, in my opinion, and I think if it does anything, it solidifies the monopoly position that the UFC has, it weakens the class action that some of the fighters have filed against the UFC, and all those are problems for fighters. I think the more direct and quicker way to change the sport for the positive for all fighters is to get the Ali Act amended, and I think the MMAFA are the only ones who are pushing and spearheading that as the option.

“The class action may change the sport down the road, but as you know, class actions take a long time, and who knows how a judge is gonna rule. And right now they’re still trying to get the class certified, which I think is gonna happen in fairly short order. But again, could be a couple of years before we see any change before we get a ruling on the class action lawsuit. And obviously, a ruling would go against the UFC and their business practices, which are being called into question. Being recognized as employees of the UFC is a stretch, because we’re all independent contractors. We get a 1099, we sign a contract that makes us an independent contractor. I don’t know why you’d want to be an employee.

“If you make too much noise or you do what Leslie’s doing, you’re at risk of just being fired by your employer. So, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But I would have rather frankly had all us fighters united under one moniker, pursuing the Ali Act amendment and the transparency that we all need in our sport and not giving the UFC more position or power in the sport than they have already.

“Obviously [Conor McGregor] helped us. He’s the poster child for why we need the amendment for Mixed Martial Arts. It will be interesting to see if he comes back to MMA. There’s been a lot of rumors and a lot of talk. Has he been stripped of both his titles? Is he gonna come back and fight again? What’s gonna happen? Who’s he gonna fight? And the big question, what’s he gonna get paid after just getting paid $100 million for a boxing match, even though it was just an exhibition and not for a title? What’s he gonna get paid the next time that he comes back and fights in MMA under the UFC moniker? Why would he expect to get paid any less than he got for boxing? I can guarantee you they are not gonna give him that kind of money. So again, why? What’s the difference? Where is the flaw here? And it’s all these things that I’ve been talking about with regards to why we need to be protected by the federal legislation.

“There needs to be transparency in our sport. The exclusive contracts need to be eliminated. We shouldn’t be coerced into giving away all these things in order to be ranked and fight for a title. I should be able to know how much money is made off of any show that I fight in, so I can negotiate for my share of that, my portion of that. So if I’m Conor McGregor, he probably feels like he deserves a bigger piece, and certainly 15 percent of it or 17 percent of it as he’s the guy putting butts in seats and having people sell pay-per-views. So all those things get brought into question by what Conor’s done so far. We would love to obviously have him involved and testify or be involved in pushing the Ali Act through. He’s aware of us, but so far he’s been very focused on his own deal and doing his own deal. So it will be interesting to see how that shakes out for him.

The MMAFA’s centerpiece is the Muhammad Ali Act extension. However, if the bill comes out of the committee, it will be voted on in the house. If it passes the House, it will be voted on in the Senate. If it passes in the Senate, it will be sent to President Trump. President Trump and UFC president Dana White are friends. White spoke glowingly of Trump at the Republican nominating convention. And the two reportedly speak regularly. The President can veto the bill, sending it back, where it will need a 2/3 majority vote in the Republican-controlled house and Republican-controlled senate to become law. The Trump administration is not pro-union. And Couture has been a vocal Trump supporter. The UFC has hired a lobbying firm to fight the Ali Act expansion. The bill faces a fight, to say the least.

As for the class action lawsuit, as Couture said, “who knows how a judge is gonna rule?”

The need for some form of players organization is clear, but the means to achieve one, not so much.