Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
A cannabis company has publicly terminated their sponsorship agreement with UFC welterweight title challenger Colby Covington.
It is rare to see companies go public with business gone bad, but that is exactly what Cannafornia Inc. did with Colby Covington.
The California-based cannabis company revealed in a press release that they had parted ways with Covington after he failed to abide by the terms of their sponsorship agreement. Fansided’s Amy Kaplan shared the press release on Twitter.
“Colby and I had become friends, taking trips together to Los Angeles and Jamaica,” Paul King, CEO of Cannafornia, said in the statement. “However without explanation, in December, Colby stopped posting to Instagram and deleted all his prior Cannafornia posts in direct violation of the sponsor agreement. As a result, we dropped Colby before his loss to Usman in Las Vegas. The Cannafornia UFC Fight Team has retained its undefeated record heading into the next big fight in March for rising heavyweight star Jairzinho Rozenstruik.”
“After deleting the Cannafornia Instagram posts conditional to his agreement, Covington posted for another CBD company and then demanded more money to continue the Cannafornia sponsorship,” King continued. “Lacking any rationale for a pay increase, Cannafornia refused and terminated Covington’s agreement. Previously unseen footage from Season Two of the Colby vlogs will be available for a brief window starting today before it and all references to Covington are removed from Cannafornia content permanently.”
Never seen a sponsor send a press release about canceling an agreement with a fighter before. This is wild. If this is true, Colby Covington really needs to re-think his professional strategy. pic.twitter.com/JRFZKU1kB1
— Amy Kaplan (@PhotoAmy33) December 16, 2019
Covington is coming off a fifth-round TKO loss to welterweight champion Kamaru Usman in a closely-contested main event at UFC 245.