GSP attorney: WME-IMG are the bad guys

Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre secured the services of two top attornies – Eric Hochstadt, a partner in Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP’s Litigation Department, and Weil’s head of litigation James Quinn. The pair have been negotiation with new UFC owners WME-IMG for months, with insufficient success.

It’s fair to say that negotiations for UFC 206 have failed, and Georges is OK with that, said Hochstadt to Matt Connolly for Forbes. He certainly tried with the UFC’s new management.

Look — Georges is ready to go if we can get this done. Hopefully, for the sport, for Georges, for fans, that can happen. At this rate [of negotiations], probably next year.

A return to the UFC remains the goal, but Hochstadt continues to claim that GSP is no longer bound by the terms of his UFC contract. The UFC disagrees and made clear they will contest any attempt at free agency in court.

He doesn’t need the UFC, said Hochstadt. If the new owners, William Morris-IMG, don’t want him back and they try to block him from fighting elsewhere, he can then take the legal battle or decide to walk away and do other things.

GSP’s attorney placed the blame for the failure to come to an agreement on the new UFC owners, noting that one had been close with the old owners.

Those are the bad guys here, said Hochstadt. Under the prior management before William Morris-IMG we don’t think any of this stuff would’ve happened. There would’ve been a deal reached, maybe even for UFC 206 in Toronto.

The central issue is apparently the Reebok Deal; GSP has a contract to represent Under Armour that is incompatible with the UFC apparel policy. However, Hochstadt and Quinn believe the UFC will want to avoid a court case centered on contracts, during an ongoing anti-trust lawsuit while at the same time there are multiple efforts underway to organize fighters.

If this is part of the broader movement for athletes to be able to stand up for themselves in the sport of mixed martial arts against the UFC, that’s great, said Hochstadt. It really is unlike the other major sports where there’s some degree of equality between the ownership and the athletes.