On Tuesday, a press release went out teasing a major announcement from several fighters repped by heavyweight talent agency CAA. On Wednesday afternoon, Georges St. Pierre, Cain Velasquez, TJ Dillashaw, Donald Cerrone, Tim Kennedy, and former Bellator head Bjorn Rebney will reveal plans that the release promises will ‘redefine MMA’ … some pretty strong words, with some pretty big names behind them.
But what exactly will the announcement be? At this point the details are being kept tightly under wraps and there’s an embargo in place to keep the better connected sports outlets from sharing leaks before the official media conference call goes down tomorrow at 4PM EST. But that doesn’t stop us from speculating on what may be happening, and speculate we shall! Here’s our best three guesses at what may be going on.
They’re Going To Start A Union
This is what most people believe is going to happen: GSP and several other top talent are going to announce something big regarding the creation of a fighter’s union. Talk of unionizing has been going on for a couple of years now, but really picked up steam over the past 12 months with well known baseball agent Jeff Borris stepping up and starting the Professional Fighters Association (PFA). So far they’ve released a set of goals and are making the rounds trying to sign enough UFC fighters up to demand legal recognition.
They’re not the only organization out there whose goal is unionization. The MMA Fighters Association is slowly pushing through an antitrust lawsuit against the UFC. And then there’s the possibility that this could mark the formation of a new group that will try and get MMA fighters together for collective bargaining in the same way NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA players are.
They’re Going To Start A New League
Sticking out like a sore thumb in the announcement is Bjorn Rebney, the man who founded and ran Bellator Fighting Championship until Viacom bought the company out and let him go in favor of longtime Strikeforce promoter Scott Coker. Bjorn isn’t particularly famous or well known, so why include him in the announcement unless he’s going to play a big part in whatever’s about to be announced? That makes us suspect some sort of nnew league may be in the works.
There’s not a lot of people out there who know how to run an MMA company without burning through tons of money. Bjorn Rebney is one of them. For six years, he took Bellator from a tiny promotion on a Spanish sports channel to a company big enough that Viacom purchased them in 2011. Rebney’s format was ambitious: an event every week for each 12 week season, and all shows revolving around tournaments. The history of MMA is littered with the corpses of promotions with lofty ambitions, but Rebney didn’t just make things work, he made the company thrive. While never a threat to the UFC’s top position, Bellator became the second biggest MMA company in the US under Rebney’s management.
They’re Going To Bust The UFC’s Contracts Open
When Georges St. Pierre and the UFC couldn’t come to terms in the fall, Georges hired James Quinn of New York firm Weil, Gotshal and Manges to help him walk away from his UFC contract. Quinn has won antitrust lawsuits against the NBA and NFL, and has also successfully defended major corporations like ExxonMobil and Vivendi Universal in nine figure litigation suits. In past comments regarding Georges’ UFC contract, he’s said “I don’t think the contract — that formal contract — is likely to stand up. Not in today’s world. It’s a pretty nice form of slavery.”
Who knows what exact laws Quinn thinks the UFC is violating, but we’re sure there’s a laundry list of potential attack points. There’s the UFC’s insistence that their fighters are independent contractors instead of employees. There’s conflict of interest claims since new talent agency owners WME-IMG have a terrible track record reaching deals with fighters managed by CAA. Then there’s the ultra-restrictive contract terms that see fighters giving away all their rights in perpetuity.
If Quinn is about to drop a legal bomb on the UFC that renders their fighter contracts null and void, it could lead to a mass exodus … possibly to a new league? One run by Bjorn Rebney? One that would operate under some sort of union-like structure where fighters get a set percentage of profits? In the end, Wednesday’s announcement could be one, two, or all three of the above possibilities. Or it could be none. We’ll let you know exactly what’s said on the conference call tomorrow.
