The UFC, which is currently in the middle of a class-action lawsuit, won’t get any sympathy from former UFC fighter Cody McKenzie, who claims he was ripped off and taken advantage of during his three-year tenure with the ZUFFA LLC-owned promotion.
A storm of past and present has opened the floodgates on the UFC, following Tuesday’s revelation of a major civil suit.
Along with current UFC star Cung Le, former UFC veterans Jon Fitch and Nate Quarry have officially filed a lawsuit against the UFC for being in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The alleged offense basically accuses the UFC for perpetual ownership of names and likeness of fighters, sponsorship restrictions, underpaying fighters and purposely scheming to create a noncompetitive marketplace by killing off other promotions.
McKenzie, who came into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter, was released from the promotion in 2013 after wearing basketball shorts in his loss to Sam Stout. During an interview with GroundandPound (which contains NSFW language), the disgruntled MMA star had plenty to say about his former employer:
I fought for the UFC for five years or whatever and fought a bunch of times for free for them and all this other bulls–t. The UFC’s a joke, they rip guys off and they treat them like s–t. I mean they have a few guys that they treat good, but I wasn’t one of them. …I hope the lawsuit goes through, and I hope they get sued for millions. F–k the UFC.
The fighters currently involved in the lawsuit have enlisted the help of lawyers from major antitrust law firms Cohen Milstein, Joseph Saveri Law Firm and Berger & Montague. The UFC has promised to defend itself “vigorously” against the lawsuit in an official statement released on UFC.com on Tuesday.
UFC President Dana White is currently vacationing in Fiji and has yet to respond to any of the allegations.
Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA writer for Rocktagon.
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