Mousasi: Reebok deal is terrible for everyone

The UFC grew from a $2 million purchase by ZUFFA in 2001 to the 2016 sale for $4 billion, the largest in sports history. They did so by executing a long series of brilliant moves, and they had the luck to be doing so at the right time.

And then there is the Reebok Deal. It’s like that decision was made by an entirely different entity, like Skala cast a spell and took the company over for the day the deal was signed.

Middleweight Gegard Mousasi signed with Bellator MMA this week, and spoke frankly about the apparel deal.

Reebok is bad for UFC and I don’t know if the new owners realize what they are doing but this is a different entertainment,” said Mousasi, as transcribed by Adam Guillen Jr. for MMA Mania. “This is fighting. I think with the Fertittas, they made the sport, it’s a different attitude maybe.

Let’s be honest, Reebok was there to sell the company. It was never to help the fighters out. Reebok became UFC because they wanted to sell it for $4 billion. It’s as simple as that, to make the sport more global. Just to sell it, but it was terrible for the fighters.

“No one complains about Reebok because if you complain, you are going to get, you know, it will get messy, they may fire you. People cannot talk about it and say ‘Reebok sucks.’ But we all know the truth. They cannot even make good tanks or shorts. What can I say, it’s the same thing. I don’t know. I was not happy with the Reebok deal. I think 99-percent of the fighters were not happy with the Reebok deal, Reebok is not happy with the deal, UFC is not happy with the Reebok. But it is what it is.

Mousasi did say that he is not a fan of the NASCAR look, plastering logos on every available part of his shorts (and often then trying to chase the money). His preference would be to work with a single sponsor. The Dreamcatcher will have that opportunity now, and is expertly managed, so his success or failure will say a lot about the state of the sponsorship market outside the UFC.