14 Key Details About The Class Action Lawsuit Against UFC

6. The UFC Allegedly Punished Fighters Who Stood Up For Their Rights Or Looked To Go Elsewhere

According to the suit,

The UFC negotiated a deal with THQ, Inc. for the development of a UFC video game. Zuffa required its athletes, for no compensation, to assign exclusively and in perpetuity their likeness rights for video game use. Fighters who wished to negotiate this request were terminated,including Plaintiff Jon Fitch. White also publicly threatened all MMA Fighters, even those not under contract with Zuffa with a permanent ban from competing in the UFC if the Fighter chose to sign with EA Sports.

We covered that in brief earlier, but there's more.

Following his victory over Matt Hughes in a welterweight title bout that had been promoted by the UFC, UFC Fighter B.J. Penn informed the UFC that he planned to sign with an actual or potential rival promotion company for a much higher payday than UFC was then offering. In response, the UFC€™s Dana White called Penn and threatened that the UFC would ban Penn from fighting for the UFC forever if Penn worked with another promoter. White told Penn that Penn was €œf***ing done! You€™ll never €€ght in the UFC again! You€™re finished. You€™re scorched earth, motherf***er. Scorched earth. Don€™t call me crying saying you want to come back because your f***ing done!€ White also threatened to remove or blur Penn€™s face from UFC videos and promotions and said he would remove his bout with Hughes from the UFC€™s DVD library so that Penn €œwould be forgotten.€

In short, the UFC used bully tactics, and in some cases possibly illegal tactics, to hold on to fighters as well as to get the deals they wanted.