Dillashaw: I don’t know if I was led down the wrong path with MMAAA

Mixed martial arts has reached mainstream sports status. It is, if fact, the biggest driver worldwide of pay-per-view television buys. However, unlike mainstream 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 extremely supportive of the Federal anti-trust suit against the UFC, which is ongoing.

In August of 2016, baseball agent Jeff Boriss established the PFA; he seeks to have UFC fighters reclassified as employees from their current independent contractor status, and form a union. He had said 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. Boriss flatly denied leaking any fighter support information. But little has been heard from him in many months.

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 owners WEM-IMG’s Coke. And it is widely believed that it was created by Bjorn Rebney, not known as a progressive promoter. At all.

Tim Kennedy has emerged as a sometimes spokesperson for the effort, while the other fighters, Donald Cerrone, TJ Dillashaw, Georges St-Pierre, Cain Velasquez, have been less vocal.

It was a mistake during the announcement to have [Rebney] be a public presence, said Kennedy in January. We obviously regretted that. But he will still be somebody that the board members will go to and ask, ‘As a promoter, did you do this?’ I need that information and he will be the guy that I am going to ask those questions to. But he has no authority and he has no position within the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association and he has no vote.

He’s never been a part in a sense that he has any authority or ability to affect anything. The only people that can vote are board members and the only people that can be board members are fighters.”

However, it is hard to reconcile Kennedy’s statement that the fighters are in charge with the latest remarks by T.J. Dillashaw, made during an appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour.

I haven’t heard much from it either, so, really I just tend to stay out of it, said Dillashaw, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. I don’t know if I was led down the wrong path or what.

I’m just kind of keeping my nose to the ground, getting my belt back and worried about that really, you know? … I have no idea what’s going on. I was told there was something bigger and more into it, but I haven’t heard anything about it, so I don’t really, I can’t really tell you much about it.

If the fighters are in charge as Kennedy says, but one of the five fighters has no idea whatsoever what is going on, who then is actually in charge? Until this is resolved, the effort is not likely to gain the necessary traction. Few people are willing to put their livelihood in the hands of an individual or group unidentified, or worse, trying to remain unidentified.