It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Georges St-Pierre and the UFC are at war, but the two sides are certainly bracing for a potential legal battle after the events of the last 24 hours. First, the decorated former UFC welterweight champion went on The MMA Hour to proclaim himself a free agent, telling Ariel Helwani that his lawyer, James W. Quinn of New York firm Weil, Gotshal and Manges, “terminated” his existing contract with the UFC.
That declaration sounded dubious. After a few hours of silence, the UFC made its stance known, releasing a statement to media including Bleacher Report that St-Pierre remains under contract. The short statement concluded with this ominous note: “Zuffa intends to honor its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same.”
Uh-oh.
The contrasting stances effectively and immediately put St-Pierre in legal limbo. After essentially declaring his independence, it appears a lawsuit is imminent.
To unpack the ramifications of these developments, I’m joined by B/R MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.
Mike Chiappetta: I don’t think any of us who’ve been watching this develop are too surprised with what’s happened. For months, GSP has spoken about returning, only to hear UFC President Dana White question his true desire to fight again.
In doing so, you had to wonder what White’s motives were. Here, St-Pierre was publicly saying he wanted to compete, and somehow White knew better? Of course not. White was mostly playing out the battle publicly as a sign of things to come. After all, the UFC wouldn’t be asserting its rights to St-Pierre if it really believed he didn’t want to fight. To White, if you don’t want to sign for what the UFC thinks is fair, then you’re not a real fighter. That’s how he sees it, but St-Pierre deserves to negotiate for every penny he thinks is fair.
The problem was, in this new world with new ownership, things are just different.
In purchasing the UFC, new parent company WME IMG took on over $1 billion in loans to fund the deal. In a recent Bloomberg story, it was reported that when the deal was marketed, prospective investors were shown estimates that stated the UFC’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were double the actual number.
That effectively means the new ownership will have to work twice as hard to reach projected earnings and revenues targets. While St-Pierre could certainly help the bottom line, the new UFC brass likely sees his contract demands as slicing into its piece of the pie rather than taking an equitable share.
Now we’ll have to wait and see how long they’ll be willing to fight this battle. St-Pierre is a beloved figure, a true pro who represented the sport as an ambassador and with professional aplomb. The UFC has always aggressively protected its contract rights, but with the ongoing antitrust lawsuit, and the Federal Trade Commission constantly snooping around, this could be a public relations debacle for the UFC if it chooses to plow forward. In some ways, this battle is not quite as unwinnable as it may seem.
Chad, what do you think GSP’s true motivations are? Is he just trying to get paid what he’s worth, or do you think he has grander ideas in mind?
Chad: I’ve always considered St-Pierre to be a reasonable and forward-thinking fighter. Not long after his promotional debut back in 2004, it became apparent he was a next-gen talent—the prototype for what it would take to be successful in the future UFC. Already a phenomenal athlete, he worked tirelessly to transform himself from a pure kyokushin karate stylist into perhaps the most effective wrestler the sport has ever seen.
Why? Because he knew that’s what would be required to succeed.
Along the way he became the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view draw and a modest crossover star years before Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor ever showed their faces. He was among the first high-profile fighters to advocate for stiffer drug testing and one of the first to start landing big-name sponsors like Under Armour and Gatorade.
So I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that now St-Pierre is trying to drag the UFC kicking and screaming into the future once again.
Because, make no mistake, free agency is the future of MMA. Free agency is destined to become as common in our sport as it is in professional football, baseball or basketball. It’s only a matter of time. It’s just going to take someone willing to do the heavy lifting.
Perhaps that person is St-Pierre.
For that reason, there are bigger things going on here than merely whether we’ll see GSP fight inside the Octagon—or anywhere else—ever again. Give credit to the man for having the strength and foresight to take on this fight even though it could potentially cost him the remainder of his own MMA career.
Judging by this quote during his appearance with Helwani, St-Pierre knows exactly what’s at stake, not just for himself but for everybody currently under contract to the UFC.
“Most fighters in the UFC, they are starving,” St-Pierre said. “And for UFC, it’s very easy when you keep a lot of your staff starving, they are easier to control … It’s up to guys like me, Conor McGregor, Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, guys that are big names to stand for these guys that [don’t] have these options.”
It would be a very big deal if a legal battle between St-Pierre and the UFC resulted in even part of the standard UFC contract being struck down by a court. That fighter contract, after all, has been the UFC’s primary tool in fashioning almost total control over the MMA industry dating back some 15 years.
And you know what? St-Pierre might be the guy to see this kind of legal action through.
What do you think, Mike? Are these two sides actually destined for the courtroom? Or is this just ploy by St-Pierre to get the fight company to bend to his demands? And isn’t the UFC taking a tremendous risk if it does go to court to try to retain GSP’s services?
Mike: Part of what makes this a fascinating struggle is the different levels this fight is being waged on. St-Pierre is certainly interested in his own rights, but as you said, he may also be dragging the rest of the UFC roster along for the ride.
St-Pierre’s attorney, the aforementioned James Quinn, has an expertise in high-stakes commercial disputes, trying cases with billions of dollars at stake. It seems clear to me that he believes he has found something in the UFC’s contract that will allow St-Pierre to void it.
St-Pierre previously mentioned the Reebok deal as one stumbling block. He was not on the UFC’s active roster when it was signed, and he likely feels that the deal would negatively impact his earnings potential due to his ongoing relationship with Under Armour.
Essentially, the UFC’s changing of the terms and conditions harmed him. This seems like a logical argument, but St-Pierre will have to be willing to play the long game to prove it in a court of law. It will be stressful, messy and costly, but if any fighter has the constitution to go through with it, it’s St-Pierre. Remember, he has spoken openly about his obsessions, and if he really feels a need to prove that certain terms of UFC contracts violate basic law and are therefore unenforceable, he would be exactly the type to take on this fight.
For once, the bigger question is, will the UFC choose to engage him? For now, it’s a game of chicken, but if St-Pierre doesn’t fold, the UFC will be risking more than just a battle with him. A court decision in his favor in regards to contract terms may free scores of fighters who faced the same problem but chose to sign—some might say under duress—rather than take a legal route.
There have been plenty of contract and labor lawyers who feel the contracts are ripe for such a situation. A few years ago, for instance, when St-Pierre was last active, B/R’s own Jonathan Snowden did a deep dive into contracts. One labor and employment expert, Dr. Zev Eigen, called some of the existing UFC contract terms “unconscionable and unenforceable.”
Notably, in that same feature, Eigen said he believed things would get worse before they get better. Three years later, here we are.
All we know is that St-Pierre is in a state of limbo, similar to ones faced in the past by Randy Couture, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Eddie Alvarez. Both sides have dug their feet in. This will be heading to a courtroom soon, but the bigger question is, will it stay there? The UFC is notoriously litigious, so will St-Pierre have the drive to match its efforts? Will he be willing to sacrifice both time and money to make a point? I think he will. What do you think, Chad, how does this ultimately end?
Chad: In any courtroom drama between fighter and promoter, the company has the upper hand. This is true not only due to the resources necessary to wage such a battle, but because of time. Athletes have a short window in which to monetize their skills. The longer they spend waiting for the wheels of justice to turn, the tighter and tighter that window becomes.
The reality is, most UFC fighters—for precisely the reasons St-Pierre outlines in the quote I used above—don’t have that option.
But that’s also why I think GSP might be especially well suited for this fight. He really has nothing left to prove in MMA, and we have every reason to believe he is financially set for the rest of his life. He still has the itch to compete, but if this disagreement goes from staring contest to all-out legal war, I think he has the patience and the wherewithal to see it through.
On Tuesday, things took their unavoidable next step. After the UFC released its terse statement saying St-Pierre still belongs to it, the fighter’s attorney fired back, making it seem as though Team GSP is more than willing to go to court.
After roughly nine months of negotiating, Quinn told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto that the UFC has yet to tender an official bout agreement to St-Pierre. The former welterweight champion and his legal team believe that gives them the right to terminate his contract.
Whether this claim stands up in court, whether it’s just part of a strategy designed to more broadly attack the UFC’s contract or whether that’s where we’re even headed remains to be seen.
The only thing we know for sure is that this a battle between two heavyweights—and one that could be more interesting and far more influential than any GSP fight we’ve seen inside the cage.
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