We’ve heard of fans suing musicians for terrible performances and no-shows before (Creed and Nickelback being two of the more infamous/well-deserved cases), but suing fighters?
According to BloodyElbow, that’s exactly what’s transpiring in the San Diego Superior Court, with the perpetrator named being none other than Jon Jones.
Let’s back things up for a second. As we all recall, Jones was scheduled to square off with heated rival Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 200 back in July until a positive out-of-competition test forced him out of the event just three days before it was set to transpire. Being that UFC 200 was being billed as “the f*cking biggest f*cking thing to ever f*cking happen to MMA” (to paraphrase Dana White), the loss of Jones from its main event left a significant hole in the card that not even Brock Lesnar could fill.
For longtime MMA fan Sean Slattery, however, the removal of Jones from the card was so devastating that it essentially rendered his tickets as useless as the paper they were printed on. As such, Slattery did what any sound-minded human being would do and filed a negligence lawsuit against Jones (as well as his management team, First Round Management) on August 19, with the main crux of his case seemingly being that he had purchased tickets to UFC 200 “for the express purpose” of watching Jones.
Just before the fight, however, Jones was dropped from the fight card after officials learned that he had tested positive for banned performance-enhancing and/or masking substances. Plaintiff was thus robbed and defrauded of the value of the tickets, wherein he suffered both economic and non-economic harm, as a result of Jones’s actions in violating anti-doping regulations, and First Round’s complicity therein. In the alternative, Jones failed to disclose other controlled substances, and in doing so was negligent, to the relevant testing officials which again deprived Plaintiff of the value of his tickets.
Slattery is also claiming that his ticket purchase was non-refundable (a fact that lies in direct contradiction with the press release sent out by the UFC the day Jones’ test was revealed), and is seeking “special, general, and punitive damages to be determined at a later date.” Really, though, I’m most curious to hear what this “non-economic harm” was that Slattery apparently suffered from as a result of an MMA fighter not being able to compete at the event he was supposed to. A brain aneurysm? A broken hand from punching the wall too hard? A palm-shaped abrasion on his face from his clearly neglected wife?
First Round Management CEO Malki Kawa has yet to offer a statement on the suit, but considering that Jones didn’t technically test positive for a banned substance, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that it gets thrown out. One can only imagine what other savage maladies will befall this poor soul when it does.