Tell Me Again About What It Means To Honor A ContractApril 14th, 2008
When Randy Couture resigned as UFC heavyweight champion, a split formed among MMA fans. There were those who sided with Couture, supporting his decision to leave the organization in search of bigger money and bigger fights elsewhere, and there were those who sided with the UFC, urging Couture to “honor his contract”. That’s what a man should do, many of you said in your comments and emails. That’s the right thing.
And yet, MMA Junkie reported recently that the UFC has dropped heavyweight Jake O’Brien from the organization, still with two fights left on his current contract. So far, I’ve heard nary a complaint. Few have urged the UFC to honor their contract with O’Brien, whose release comes after losing his first fight ever as a professional, and to Andrei Arlovski.
Where’s the indignation for O’Brien, who, according to agent Ken Pavia, was essentially cut out of nowhere? Where are the calls for Dana White to “be a man” and honor his commitment to O’Brien?
The answer, apparently, is that honoring contracts is for fighters, not organizations. For some reason, it’s not a two-way street.
Terminating contracts at any time and for any reason is the UFC’s prerogative. They’ve structured the contracts that way, for exactly this reason. They want to be able to cut a guy like O’Brien — who has won in a fashion they found unsatisfying — as soon as he drops the first fight of his career. But just because you get someone to agree to sign an unfair contract like that, it doesn’t make it morally justified.
We’ve become used to these kinds of contracts in pro sports. You’re unhappy with your team’s coach, he still has two years left on his contract, fine, you get rid of him now rather than wait it out. The difference is that in other sports, the guy who gets dropped usually also gets paid.
Not so in the UFC, where they let you go out of nowhere with a pat on the back and half-hearted letter of recommendation to Palace Fighting Championships. O’Brien thought he was locked in to the UFC for at least two more fights. Turns out he made an unforgivable mistake. He lost one fight. So long, Jake.
Besides the obvious ethical contradiction between moves like this and the accusations the UFC has leveled at Couture, there’s the issue of the message this sends to other fighters. Whatever you think of the merits of O’Brien’s fighting style, the guy is 10-1. He lost to former heavyweight champ Arlovski and now he’s out of a job. How are other UFC fighters supposed to perceive this move?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I were a UFC fighter right about now I’d be feeling as though my contract was limiting my options while simultaneously offering no real job security. Ideally, that’s not what you want out of a contract. You’d like to have both parties equally committed, or at least close to it. You can argue that the fighters don’t have to sign such contracts, but that’s a little like arguing that Wal-Mart employees shouldn’t complain about low wages and poor benefits because they could always choose unemployment instead.
Fairness aside, this is also not a smart long-term strategy for the UFC. With the current landscape of MMA in such an unprecedented state of flux, they should be trying to inspire a sense of loyalty in their fighters, not treating them like expendable commodities. It’s unfair for them to ask for that loyalty from top-tier fighters like Couture if they aren’t going to extend it to the rest of their roster.
As much as I hate to say it, this is exactly why the athletes in other sports have unions.
12 Comments
Do you know for fact that the UFC doesnt hand fighters a severance pay of any kind when they terminate a contract like that ?
Here I think you have conflated, purposely - for salesmanship - two arguments that really don’t do well when pressed together this way.
First you have the Morality in Honoring a Contract argument.
Secondly you have the Poor Working Conditions argument.
You do bring them together by giving a small nod to unions at the end, well done.
However, the fact is that one argument is well-illustrated with the case of O Brien, while the other is not. The effect is to cheapen both arguments. And in this case you even put the obvious point that unravels you, right in the article text.
You mention unions at the end, but right before that you said “You can argue that the fighters don’t have to sign such contracts, but that’s a little like arguing that Wal-Mart employees shouldn’t complain about low wages and poor benefits because they could always choose unemployment instead.”
Sure Ben, they could choose unemployment, or? They could choose to unionize. Calling for union, which is certainly an idea with merit, does nothing but weaken your stance on the previous issue; Honoring Contracts.
The title here asks us readers this question “Tell Me Again About What It Means To Honor A Contract”? Well, ok, I’ll tell you; it means that you obey the words written on the contract. That’s it, simple.
“The answer, apparently, is that honoring contracts is for fighters, not organizations. For some reason, it’s not a two-way street.”
Except that it is, as you note in your very next, self-undermining, sentence -
“Terminating contracts at any time and for any reason is the UFC’s prerogative. They’ve structured the contracts that way, for exactly this reason.”
Well there you have it, sir. The contracts are actually structured so that the UFC can drop a guy they want to cut. Morality does not enter into honoring a contract, the only things that matter here are the words on the paper.
Now, your second point, the UFC not creating a very good working atmosphere, has some legs. Let’s run with it for moment. What does dropping a guy like Jake O’Brien say to other fighters? A few things, in my opinion;
1) Wins are not enough, what we expect is excitement
2) Losses are not enough, what we expect is excitement
Think I’m wrong? How about looking at someone who has not been dropped, but maybe should be - Alessio Sakara. Why do thye bring him back? Because he pushes the pace until he gets stopped, over and over, every time. The man is the crash test dummy of UFC (Sinosic, notwithstanding) and they know that he will show up and smash into a wall time and time again.
How about Tim Sylvia? Think they dropped him for being a loser? Brandon Vera still has his contract, so something tells me that it isn’t just losing.
No, they don’t drop fighters for losing, they drop fighters for being boring. I seem to recall a pretty qualified author on one of these MMA blogs saying that Jake O’Brien’s wrestling-driven style was akin to a cheap suit. Maybe he should’ve dressed better? It impresses the fans. it impresses your employer.
Now is that a constructive policy, or does it simply create an adversarial working environment? I would argue for the latter. Certainly the fans must be appeased and excitement is factor - or is it? I’m not convinced.
Matt Hughes is an exceptionally popular fighter, enduringly so, while also being one of the most boring possible competitors. He’s a simple takedown machine, and an equally efficient robotic side-control ground and pound-o-tron5000. Boring, right?
So what’s the difference between the wrestling-driven style of a Matt Hughes and the wrestling-driven style of O’Brien?
If it isn’t Excitment, isn’t Winning or Losing, then what could it be? Appeal. People want to BE Matt Hughes. They want to envision themselves shrugging off a Frank Trigg choke and gorilla slamming him into the ground!
People might not want to BE Allesio Sakara, but you know what? Sakara can make any opponent into an idol for the fans. That’s Sakara’s value to a company like the UFC. Jake O’Brien is not an idol, and he doesn’t make his opponents look great when he loses.
That’s why he’s really been dropped, that’s why big Tim was let go; they don’t elevate the status of their opponents, and no one idolizes them. Personally I’ll miss them both, I like a guy who goes ot and enforces his gameplan, no mater what that might be. But I’m not really the average fan, I guess.
Vrax, you make some good points, as usual, but here’s the thing. When Dana White went on his anti-Couture campaign, his rhetoric was laden with the “be a man” sentiment, and that’s an appeal to a sense of honor and fairness. Therefore, I feel just fine about turning that same argument against Dana White.
And you’re right that honoring a contract means honoring it as it’s written, but show me in Couture’s contract where it says he can’t leave the UFC and sit out the duration of the contract before signing with someone else. That’s what he’s said, since the beginning, that he intends on doing.
As for your argument that morality has no place in a discussion of contracts, I have to take issue. I’m of the crazy opinion that every issue is a moral issue. If you’re drawing up contracts that are exploitative are unfair, I don’t think you can make the argument that just because the other guy agrees to it you are immediately morally vindicated.
That’s how a robot would negotiate, because a robot lacks empathy and can’t understand that even if you agree to it now, you might do so with resentment, and that might lead to trouble down the road.
I realize the UFC is running a business and not an ethics class, but ask yourself this: if you’re screwing people over whenever and however you can, just because you can, what’s going to happen when other people get the opportunity to screw you (and eventually, someone always does)?
The UFC should be trying to build a sense of loyalty among its fighters. Cutting guys out of the blue, keeping guys off televised cards when they try and negotiate for more money, these are bad PR policies by the UFC. It’s the kind of thing that will come back to haunt them sooner or later.
I haven’t read couture’s contract. However I have seen some sporting contracts and they generally contain the clause “must fulfill his/her duties as a competitor/champion”. Which includes, in Couture’s case, fighting in the Octagon.
Published sections of the contract, and indeed the entire legal dispute, center around the fact that Couture is contracted for “his next X fights”. Some contracts have a date-triggered expiration, others do not. Like I said, I haven’t seen Randy’s papers, my point with this is just to say that such contracts, those with no expiration date, do exist. Maybe Randy signed one? I dunno.
Once again Ben I find it strange that someone with level of insider savvy would confuse Dana White: Actor with Dana White: businessman. Hereafter DW:act and Bizzy-D.
DW:act has to put on a show that says to the public “I am not being a whiny bitch who cares solely for profits” while Bizzy-D has work for his bosses and partners putting on a show that says “I am a whiny bitch who cares solely for profits!” because both the Dana Whites need to have some measure of public support. The only way to take down a champion in the eyes of the public is to emasculate that champion.
So that’s cool if you want to flip DW:act’s argument back upon him. Cool. But not productive. You want results? Deal with Bizzy-D (was my entire writing a ploy to say “deal with bizzy-d?” Maaaaaaybe) he actually works at the UFC.
With regard to robo-negotiating there are clauses that can be added for re-opening negotiations at a later date, while still within the current contract. See also: Rampage Jackson re-negotiating after his win over Eastman.
So, Ben, you a vegan?
Dealing with Bizzy-D may be the best course of action, Vrax, though I would argue that he does not have to be the other Dana White. He only thinks he does. I think people would respect Bizzy-D a little more if only DW:act weren’t running around like a fourteen-year-old boy who’s just seen his first Richard Pryor standup act.
On the Couture issue, he isn’t being sued for his fight contract, he’s being sued for his promotional contract, which has a set ending date.
If you need any proof that the robo-negotiating strategy is a bad one, just look at what seems to happen when a UFC fighter gets enough star power to start calling some shots, as Couture has done. By that time, they’re pissed off and resentful of the UFC, and it’s because of that strategy.
My point here is the UFC is thinking short when they ought to be thinking long. Take Jake O’Brien. He’s 10-1 with a bunch of KO’s in the minor orgs. Say he goes out and gets his groove back. Say he becomes one of the best heavyweights around in the next five years, when guys like Couture, Sylvia, Fedor, et al are retiring. Then the UFC wants him back. What’s he going to say?
Depending on the state of the landscape, he either tells them to go screw themselves while he signs with whoever else is around, or maybe he agrees to come back if they pay through the nose.
Best case scenario, the UFC overpays for a guy they once had for cheap, just because they stepped all over him back when they could. This may never happen, but it could. Not to mention, is now really the time to be letting heavyweights back into the free agency market? I tend to think no.
Ah yes, the old “Wal-Mart underpays” canard. A Wal-Mart employee’s choices are not as narrow as you imply, Ben. His options are not limited to working at Wal-Mart for low wages or collecting unemployment. If Wal-Mart pays so poorly, he can put in his application at Target, KMart, or Shopko. If he finds that all those places pay the same, then our man isn’t really underpaid at all, is he? Rather, he is selling a product (his retail stocking/check-out/sales services) that is not as valuable as he would like. His options are to attempt to sell higher-value services that he is currently able to offer (perhaps forklift-driving or construction-working) or to improve the value of his services through education. I hope you don’t mean to suggest that Wal-Mart is under some obligation to serve as the guarantor of a comfortable liefstyle for anyone who is willing to slide two-liter bottles over a barcode reader for forty hours a week. If that is what you mean to suggest, then you should stop reading and donate $50 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. If you think it is not Wal-Mart’s responsibility to ensure that each of its employees can afford a solar-powered house and a Prius hybrid, read on.
Like Wal-Mart, the UFC is not the guarantor of a good living for a man who chooses a career as a fighter. And make no mistake, these guys all chose to be fighters. When they made that choice, they had to know that with very few exceptions, fighters aren’t terribly well compensated. So they made a conscious decision to offer for sale a set of services that tend not to be of great value.
Now, when two sides come to the bargaining table to make a deal, the respective bargaining power of the parties bears a strong correlation to the value of what each has to offer. On one side, we have our fighter, a purveyor of low-value services who has no name and is not marketable. On the other, we have the UFC, without which mixed martial arts in the United States would still be the largely ignored and obscure sporting backwater it was in 1999. Throughout the last ten years, we’ve seen lots of fighters who can succeed at fighting. But we’ve only seen one company that can succeed at running a fighting promotion, and that’s the UFC. The UFC has proven its ability to create superstars, and to make them rich.
So while serviceable fighters are everywhere, there is only one company that has figured out how to make money promoting MMA. The economics of making a fight promotion succeed are tenuous at best. The reason for that relates to demand; there just aren’t enough people in this country who care about MMA to support a promotion unless it is ruthlessly well-run. In that case, a fighters’ union would be disastrous for all but the most well-known fighters.
Let’s assume that a fighters’ union caused purses to rise nationwide. The UFC could probably sustain the economic hit, but the fighters in the UFC, particularly toward the top of the card, are least in need of a raise. Most other promotions, however, would be instantly put out of business. Even those second-tier promotions that have television deals are losing money. Increasing fighters’ paydays will plunge those companies further into the red. The end result of a union would be far fewer opportunities for men who choose to fight for a living to earn a paycheck. As it currently stands, Jake O’Brien can try to catch on with Strikeforce or Elite XC or any number of smaller promotions where he can at least earn a paycheck. In a unionized world, he might be forced to spend his day complaining about his crappy pay at Wal-Mart.
Unionization is not the answer. The greatest upward pressure on fighter purses will occur when there are credible and profitable alternatives to the UFC as an MMA promotion. Such competitors can not be sustained at the current level of popularity of MMA in the United States.
That said, to the extent your original post was laced with contempt for Dana White as a person, I could not agree more.
Here’s the thing about the Wal-Mart analogy, Ted. While I agree that it isn’t a company’s responsibility (whether it’s Wal-Mart or the UFC) to guarantee comfort and leisure for all employees, it’s also not smart business to fuck with the people you depend on.
That guy stocking fish sticks at Wal-Mart? Yeah, he might not be a high-value employee, but they still depend on him on some level. If he spends his eight hours pissed off at Wal-Mart every day, he’s going to end up costing them in other ways. It’s like my local Pathmark supermarket. Nobody there has any pride in what they do, probably because what they do is pretty shitty. But that just makes for an even shittier environment, because no one cares. Maybe they steal. Maybe they just don’t clean up that spilled Pepsi until they absolutely have to. Maybe they’re jerks to the customers because they hate their lives. What I’m saying is, there are ways for a business to lose money besides giving their employees a living wage.
Where the Wal-Mart analogy gets tricky is the question of options. Could those Wal-Mart employees put in an application somewhere else? Maybe, unless it’s one of those towns where Wal-Mart has run everyone else out of business already.
My gripe with the UFC is that they sometimes seem so intent on promoting the UFC and not MMA that they do unintentional damage to the sport as a whole. Again, they think short when they should think long.
As for your knock on Obama, you should know I already gave him $50. Felt good, too. Look at oil prices today, my man, and then tell me if that solar-powered house and Prius isn’t sounding better and better. Then again, I guess our troops don’t have to die for oil. They could always work at Wal-Mart instead.
Hey man, it’s your money. And just think how much more of it you’ll have after January 20, 2008, when gas prices plummet because Barack Obama is sworn in as president. And Barack thinks rural Pennsylvanians are delusional.
Oh I agree whole-heartedly that Dana White should clean up his language and act like a respectable human being.
Or wait. No, I don’t! He is that way to draw in the 14-19 market who will be his next generation of fans. And man alive those kids love the cussin’. It goes back to what I was saying high status chimps in…er people and how we idolize those with high status. DW:act is the kind of guy kids think they’d like to be - able to talk down and bad mouth whomever they please.
Ben it’s a sad fact that most fans are happier with Paul Bunetello cutting someone than to watching Parisyan v. Sanchez. Most of them also love Dana’s character, sad but true.
Now I wold like to point as, as stated in my initial reply, that I like Jake O’Brien, and YES! I do think the UFC made a big mistake. Rarely would I even tangentially suggest that UFC take a lesson from the WWE but this is that rare time. If the WWE is not happy with someone at present, but feels they have star power etc. they take them off screen and put them into a developmental league. Then when and if they guy hits his stride, they bring him back. The most notable would be StoneCold Steve Austin; he wrestled as “the ringmaster” for a while and then was put into development, sent to Al snow’s gym to re-train and later brought back into the main show and given top billing.
Rather than drop fighters like O’Brien the UFC should start creating heavier weight classes in the WEC and hold slightly more events under that banner. Furthermore all the guys who will appear on the PPV events and Spike tv events should be given microphone/stage lessons.
As for Ted’s version of economics - look where that got us. So I too donated to Obama. That said, I don’t think he’ll be able to ring down oil prices, that’s just silly.
Indeed, my support for Obama has nothing to do with believing he’ll bring down oil prices. You don’t bring down oil prices, you just live with them. That said, John McCain’s philosophy of setting up shop in Iraq for the conceivable future and possibly bombing Iran sounds like the worst possible idea.
Worse, even, than terminating Jake O’Brien’s contract?
Indeed, my support for Obama has nothing to do with believing he’ll bring down oil prices. You don’t bring down oil prices, you just live with them. That said, John McCain’s philosophy of setting up shop in Iraq for the conceivable future and possibly bombing Iran sounds like the worst possible idea.
While I can think of many worse ideas - yeah. (like bombing even more places than that!)
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