I have read the entirety of Bellator’s request for an injunction (obtained by Bleacher Report via a Freedom of Information Act request late last week) against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
I have opinions on the injunction, but those aren’t enough, and so I’ve turned to an expert. We’ll get to that in a little bit. First, a little history.
If you are not familiar with the story, here is a refresher, courtesy of the injunction filing from Viacom:
After beating Mo Lawal at Bellator 120 (Bellator’s first pay-per-view event) on May 17, 2014, Jackson’s manager Anthony McGann was informed by Spike TV’s Kevin Kay that the pay-per-iew sales had not reached the threshold of sales where Jackson would receive a bonus.
Per Jackson’s contract (also included in the court documents), he would receive $4 per PPV buy for all purchases above 190,000. Because Kay confirmed the event only did 100,000 buys, Jackson would not receive a bonus.
Shortly after, Jackson indicated that he wanted to discuss renegotiating his contract with new Bellator president Scott Coker. In his statement in the injunction filing, Coker said he believed that Jackson was a valuable asset for Bellator, and so he agreed to talk with Jackson about changing his contract.
Jackson was unhappy about the pay-per-view threshold and wanted to change it. Ultimately, Viacom ended up giving Jackson a check for $200,000 to make up for the loss in pay-per-iew bonuses, even though they weren’t contractually obligated to do so. Jackson picked up the check from Coker’s office in person.
According to the injunction, McGann emailed Coker in October and notified him that Bellator was in breach of paragraph four of Jackson’s contract because they were not given pay-per-view results in writing. This is crucial, and I believe it will end up being the deciding factor in court. Here’s the paragraph:
PROMOTER shall deliver to FIGHTER, promptly following PROMOTER’S receipt from its pay-per-view distributors and licensees that telecast the Bout in the PPV Territory, a copy of a summary report of pay-per-view buys in the PPV Territory, which PROMOTER receives from distributors.
Each such report shall be accompanied by any additional payment to FIGHTER of any amount which such report indicates is then due to FIGHTER pursuant to this section.
The final number of pay-per-view buys as reported to PROMOTER by PROMOTER’S pay-per-view distributors and licensees for the Bout shall be binding upon PROMOTER and FIGHTER with respect to the calculation of the PPV Payment to FIGHTER pursuant to this Agreement.
On November 21, McGann sent Bellator a termination notice due to the alleged breach. On December 4, Coker had a phone call with Kirk Hendrick, the chief legal officer for Zuffa. Hendrick told Coker that the UFC was negotiating with Jackson and that Jackson’s camp said he was a free agent.
Coker told Hendrick that Jackson was not a free agent and that he was under contract to Bellator. Hendrick asked for a letter from Coker stating that Jackson was under contract, so Coker directed that the email be sent to Zuffa.
According to the injunction, shortly after, Zuffa responded by email, saying “that the representations made to us on this subject are directly contrary to those set forth in your email. We will look into the matter and follow up with you if necessary.”
Jackson then signed with the UFC and was booked to face Fabio Maldonado at next month’s UFC 186 event in Montreal. On March 2, Bellator filed the injunction to prevent Jackson from fighting on the event.
Let’s circle back to the paragraph above, from Jackson’s contract.
You’ll notice the it says “a copy of a summary report of pay-per-view buys in the PPV Territory.” To me, this means something printed or possibly in writing.
According to both Viacom and Jackson’s side, Kay delivered the pay-per-view results verbally. They contend that, because the PPV numbers were not high enough to trigger Jackson’s bonus, that he was not due a written record of the sales unless asked for. Viacom stated McGann did not ask for a copy of the summary report when informed of the numbers.
Did Viacom breach Jackson’s contract by not delivering the summary report to Jackson’s camp in writing? It seems that way to me. But as I’ve told you, I am not an expert.
So I turned to one.
Robert B. Johnson teaches at the University of Houston Law Center and acts as the Law Center’s director of continuing legal education. He has far more experience than I with the law (and by this I mean he has experience), and so I wanted to ask him a few questions regarding the lawsuit.
Bleacher Report: From reading the docs, do you think Viacom made the case for an injunction?
Johnson: Possibly. These injunction hearings happen very quickly. If an injunction is granted, it will last until the trial is decided on its merits (editor’s note: Thus an injunction would all but keep Rampage Jackson from fighting at UFC 186 on April and until a trial was settled).
In order to grant the injunction, Bellator must first demonstrate “irreparable harm.” Note that “irreparable harm” is generally defined to include harm that can’t be fully remedied by an award of money damages. That is, without an injunction, the plaintiff must be harmed in a way that can’t be quantified.
The court will also consider several other factors. The plaintiff must have a settled legal basis for relief in order to get an injunction. An exception exists where the plaintiff seeks to maintain the status quo, which is at play in this case.
When the facts of the case are disputed under oath, there must be a hearing to settle the disputed facts. However, where the plaintiff seeks to preserve the status quo, there must be more than mere doubt about the validity of the claim.
Finally, the court will consider the relative hardship to the parties and the public at large.
In this case, Bellator has, among other things, argued that it has invested a great deal of resources in fighter development, that each fighter has a finite number of fights in his or her career, that a “star fighter” cannot be measured in money alone and that losing a fighter when fights remain on the deal harms its reputation.
Bellator makes these arguments in an attempt to satisfy the burden of demonstrating “irreparable harm” if Jackson were allowed to fight elsewhere before a trial on the merits.
BR: The contract Jackson signed says Viacom has to provide PPV numbers in printed form. They didn’t do that—they verbally communicated. Is that enough for a breach?
Johnson: Maybe. Generally speaking, you have to go by what the contract calls for.
In this case, Jackson claims Bellator breached, among others, paragraph 4(A)(i)(2), which says, “PROMOTER shall deliver to FIGHTER, promptly following PROMOTER’S receipt from its pay-per-view distributors and licensees that telecast the Bout in the PPV Territory, a copy of a summary report of pay-per-view buys in the PPV Territory, which PROMOTER receives from distributors.”
The language, “shall,” in the contract is mandatory. In the Certification of Kevin Kay document, Kay indicates that he “told” Jackson’s agent the PPV results but withheld the “summary report” because Jackson’s agent allegedly made threats that he intended to “make public all the details of the Jackson/Bellator relationship.”
Ultimately, it will be up to the court to decide whether this constitutes a breach.
BR: If Viacom is not granted the injunction, does it harm any future action they might take? And what would be their next step if they are not granted an injunction?
Johnson: It’s hard to say how it would harm any future action Bellator might take. Ultimately, if Jackson fights for the UFC, that can’t be undone later. I think that’s the point Bellator tries to make in the lawsuit. The question is, did Bellator make the point well enough to get an injunction?
So, there you have it. In this ambiguous situation, much will be left up to the court to interpret. And it centers around if the court believes Bellator was in breach of contract or not.
Bellator obviously feels a need to protect its contracts, as failing to do so could harm the company in the future. Not just with Jackson, but with anyone it has a contract with. These contracts are a chief tenet of its business. Without them, things start to unravel.
And so you can’t blame Bellator for doing whatever they possibly can to keep Jackson from voiding his contract. The courts not granting its injunction, while perhaps on the final blow in this case, would be a huge blow.
And on the flip side, this is not the first time Jackson has signed with a promoter and then quickly soured on that promoter. This one came in record time, of course. But Jackson’s tenures with the UFC and with PRIDE ended in similar fashion: with plenty of complaining.
We don’t yet know if Jackson will fight for the UFC again.
He’s scheduled for a bout in just over one month. If we are being honest here, Jackson is probably involved in the most anticipated bout on that card, even though it is headlined by a bantamweight and strawweight title fight. Losing Jackson from the card will surely be painful to Zuffa’s wallet. But the UFC all along was taking a calculated risk re-signing and promoting him in a fight.
In the end, this thing will come down to whether or not Bellator was, in fact, in breach of Jackson’s contract by not providing him a copy of the pay-per-view sales report. This one is headed to the courts, and I’d be surprised to see Jackson face Maldonado at UFC 186.
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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