Adam Hill over at the Las Vegas Journal Review is reporting that UFC owners Zuffa are filing lawsuit against Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture. Here's an excerpt.
Lawyers for Zuffa, LLC, the UFC's parent company, on Monday filed suit in Clark County District Court, alleging chiefly that Couture's comments about the UFC and its senior management caused the business irreparable damage and that he is in breach of the contract he signed with the company in December 2006.
Read the Rest HERE
Well everybody saw this coming a mile away, not exactly a big suprise.
7 comments:
Genious move by Zuffa!
Sue one of (if not THE) most beloved fighters the UFC has ever seen...I'm sure all the Couture loving fans will immediately side with the UFC if the evidence stacks up against The Natural in court.
Idiots! They're seeking $10K+ when the legal costs and bad publicity will cost them dearly.
If Zuffa really cared about it's image so much...instead of suing Randy, here were/are a couple options:
- shoulda signed Fedor
- let UFC fighters fight outside of the UFC
and last but not least...
- take dude's recommendation that runs this amazing website and set up those fights he suggested for the Light Heavy's (aka sort shit out in the ring vs. the boardroom)
Anyway, nice going Zuffa...even a win means a loss on this one.
Randy wins.
this is some bullshit. how are you gonna sue captain america? fuck outta here!
thanks for a great site btw, i check in here every day. good looks!
I have something to say about this whole Zuffa/Couture situation. Couture deserves to have his ass handed to him after the way he acted, it sounds to me like someone got themselves into a little money trouble and is looking for a way to suck out some more profit for doing in fact very little. For starters I'm tired of hearing about how "little" these guys make, it's pathetic. Billions of people make significantly less than these people for an entire year and get by. Look at the facts, prior to TUF1 and the subsequent Liddell vs. Couture fight the biggest PPV for UFC (Zuffa owned) was UFC 40 with about 150,000 buys. Jump to the Liddell/Couture fight and that number significantly jumped to 280,000. Since then UFC has obviously exploded leading to 2006's out-grossing of boxings biggest year(1999), but the major factor to me is the fact that Couture, from a business stance, has not brought in more business than many other fighters. Even Liddell/Couture3 was overshadowed by Arlovski/Sylvia2 (425,000 to 410,000) and it should be noted that Couture retired after that fight. Jump forward and we see Liddell/Ortiz2 bring in 1,050,000 buys, 2 months later Couture/Sylvia brought only 534,000 buys. What does this say? Obviously Liddell is a much bigger draw and why? Because people want to see a fight finish inside the distance. Liddell/Jackson brought in 675,000 buys because we were almost guaranteed a finish. Isn't this what has damaged boxing so much over the years, the fact that they can't seem to finish someone off? Don't get me wrong, I thought Couture/Sylvia was a great fight but no matter how long he had Sylvia's back he never could finish him for some unexplainable reason. So if Couture could have finished him would there have been this question of his value? Couldn't Couture have renegotiated and go more money? Or better yet, If Liddell hadn't KO'd him in their 2nd fight and continued to KO everyone he fought would the UFC have been as successful as they are now or would they fall short of boxing? I know I would still be a fan but would the rest of the 1,049,999 who bought Liddell/Ortiz2 still be watching?
(lonelydead)
You have some excellent points...but I see some serious flaws in your comment.
This isn't about Liddel vs. Couture PPV ratings. And it isn't about how Liddel is a finisher (except for his last 2 fights of course). On the topic of finishing ...just because Randy had Silvia's back (or any fighter having someone's back) doesn't mean an automatic RNC is coming...those days are OVER...people have learned how to defend it. (i.e. didn't some dude recently have Faber's back AND a figure 4...and couldn't close the deal?)
Back to the point. This is about the "image" of the UFC. And if the UFC has issue with the "image damaging comments and actions" of Randy...an arbitration as opposed to suing one the fan favorites might have been a better option.
Do you really think suing Randy is going to HELP the image of the UFC??? (regardless of whether or not they're right and they win)
csreeves, I'm not agreeing with UFC in filing a lawsuit but it is focused around the blatant bullsh*t Couture spit out about the company in which he was not only wrong in doing so it was proven so. I mean to say that UFC treated him like crap is absurd, he lost 2 straight fights, "retired", and upon returning was granted and immediate title shot. If they had done that for another fighter, Liddell for instance, then what would the damage have been? Sounds to me like he was treated more than fairly. As for not finishing the fight, how many fighters have been able to defend against a ground and pound attack from the back successfully? There was more that could have been done in that fight to end it, he dazed Sylvia hard and I don't think he capitalized on it to his potential, he moved to the best position he could have in a fight and did nothing with it. The fact is that when one of your best fighters turns around and bad mouths the company who seemingly put his name on the map it does damage to the company. People have to understand that of course Couture won the fights to make a name for himself but it was the UFC who fueled the fire for it, I mean this is a sort of partnership deal here, and when one side turns on the other for no good reason then I think something should be done. Would you agree with GSP or Matt Hughes if they had done the same? The fact that they didn't sign Fedor was an even bigger compliment to Couture because they openly said that they didn't think he was worth more than Couture. If they had signed Fedor it would have been for more than Couture, so would he have been happy with that? If UFC had let Couture fight in M-1 or any other organization wouldn't that be a huge step down for UFC. I can see in the future having inter-organizational fights like Pride/UFC but you have to remember that those companies were seemingly at the same level in different parts of the world. No one is at UFC level right now or may ever be close, but the more important fact is that no single organization out there can match talent with the UFC, except maybe EliteXC in some areas. If UFC allowed fights in other organizations then those organizations would be tapping into the name and success that UFC has alone created for MMA today, it has been the UFC's work that has brought MMA to the masses. They deserve to keep their success for themselves. I mean really how many people would tune into see the Xtreme Couture Team in IFL if they didn't know the name from "that guy from UFC"? On a side note thanks for the compliment on the fights I suggested for the Light Heavy's, I don't run the site, I just set up a gmail account so it was posted anonymous at that time. What other potential fights would you like to see throughout the divisions in UFC? How about giving a better fight to Marcus Davis, say Jon Fitch or Josh Koscheck? How about Huerta and Diego Sanchez at 155 or Gonzaga/Nogeira? I don't know about you but I hate hearing "I won't fight so and so because we're friends" ruling out possible future fights with Paulo Filho/Anderson Silva, although I'd rather see GSP/Silva in a pound for pound fight.
I sick of hearing about this. Couture need to burn, striped of the title have his legacy tarnished and eventually absolutly crushed by Fedor. I said it before and Couture is the T.O. of the MMA. He should thank UFC for making him a houshold name. He needs to understand that UFC is the only reason he is able to make all this money on the side because of his name recognition(Name that UFC created) He needs to think where he would be if UFC did not grant him a HW title shot after hi got 2 dtraight KO at a lower weight class. I dare anyone to name another time where a looser of 2 staright by a KO was alowed to come in and get a title shot. If he did not want to be there for 4 fights then he shouldn't have signed the contract. I am glad to see that alot of fans, even those who backed Randy at first are jumping ship, to the one of the truth and what's right. And nothing that Randy has said or done seems right.
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