Reasons why the newly announced union will likely flop

I just read this it pretty much reiterated what my initial thoughts were once the announcement happened.


By Kevin Iole 


eight percent of the gross revenue, as the former Bellator promoter alleged during a conference call on Wednesday announcing the creation of the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association, it is outrageously unfair.


Of course, UFC management disputes that number, and former CEO Lorenzo Fertitta has said the figure is in excess of 50 percent.

The truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes, though there can be little question that the fighters would be better off if they unionized.

There, though, is the rub: Who are they going to organize with?

Rebney’s group became the third one attempting to organize fighters. There’s another, made up mostly of retired and former UFC fighters that organizer Rob Maysey calls the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association. Randy Couture, Nate Quarry, Jon Fitch and Cung Le are among the names linked to this one.

In August, attorney Lucas Middlebrook and baseball agent Jeff Borris created the Professional Fighters Association. UFC women’s bantamweight contender Leslie Smith has been the most visible athlete linked to this group.

But Smith and Middlebrook, who represented Nick Diaz in his marijuana suspension appeal in front of the Nevada Athletic Commission, abruptly left the group this week after names of potential board members were leaked.

It’s easy to imagine a lot of UFC fighters scratching their head, wondering what is going on with all of these various groups vying to represent them.

UFC fighters Tim Kennedy, Donald Cerrone, T.J. Dillashaw, Cain Velasquez and currently retired former champion Georges St-Pierre participated in Wednesday’s conference call regarding the MMAAA.

Someone needs to represent these fighters, because they compete in high-risk jobs and in many cases abandon their education in pursuit of MMA stardom. When they’re 40, can’t fight any more and are potentially physically incapacitated, how do they support themselves then?

Those who say a union doesn’t make sense for fighters must not know what life was like for Major League Baseball players before Marvin Miller unionized them and negotiated a collective bargaining agreement.

Today, MLB is a $10 billion business annually and players have made extraordinary gains in diverse areas such as total income, health care, pensions, free agency and more.

A strong union hasn’t hurt MLB and it won’t hurt the UFC.

That’s easy to see. As I wrote in July not long after WME/IMG purchased the UFC for $4.2 billion, fighters are in need of things many workers take for granted. They deserve health care plans, as well as pensions and licensing fees and the like.

Two things, though, make today’s move almost laughable: First is the failure of the fighters to get together and choose one group to represent them.

As it stands now, Maysey and his team are pursuing a federal anti-trust suit against the UFC and who knows what else. Borris is planning to move ahead despite Middlebrook’s departure, and now Rebney is jumping in.

More significantly, Rebney is an extraordinarily curious choice for the fighters to cast their lot with given his tenure at Bellator.

He ranted Wednesday about the UFC’s business practices, but he’s the guy who as Bellator’s head had such iron-clad contracts that it was next-to-impossible for a fighter to move on after finishing up a deal.

Rebney went to the mat to try to keep Eddie Alvarez in Bellator after Alvarez signed an offer sheet with the UFC.

Rebney viciously and aggressively pursued the matter in court, forcing Alvarez, who had far fewer resources than the promotion, to settle. Rebney has hardly been a champion for fighters in his career, as many have noted.

Julie Kedzie, a former UFC and Strikeforce fighter, tweeted, “I don’t trust Bjorn yet, given his past dealings as a promoter.”

Shannon Knapp, the president of the Invicta Fighting Championships, tweeted the following:

I'll only believe Rebney's intentions are good if he doesn't get anything out of this other than righting all the wrongs he committed. #no$$

— Shannon Knapp (@shanknapp) November 30, 2016


And prominent MMA manager Malki Kawa wrote on Twitter, “I’ve been fighting the fighters’ fight for a lot of things for years. But this is [expletive]. Sounds good today, but we’ll see. Bjorn is a snake.”

Kawa told Yahoo Sports he supported formation of a fighter’s union, and was pleased to see athletes stand up and speak out.

“All of these unions, their heart is in the right place in terms of what they’re trying to do,” Kawa said. “The way they’re going about it is incorrect.”

They’d better get it right, because they’re only going to get one crack at it. Once a union is elected to represent the group, the fighters will begin to pay dues because the staff that will do the nuts and bolts of negotiating the contract will need to be paid.

Getting a quality person to negotiate isn’t easy, or cheap. Don Fehr, the former baseball union head who now runs the NHLPA, reportedly makes more than $3 million a year. MLBPA head Tony Clark makes more than $2 million.

And that’s just for the No. 1 man. Any MMA union or association will need a full staff, some of whom will be similarly highly salaried.

That means that in addition to asking for improved wages, full health care coverage and a pension for themselves, when the fighters get to the bargaining table with the UFC, they’ll also have to be able to pay their staff to represent them properly.

It’s incumbent upon the fighters who are aligned with these groups to get together and pick one and begin in earnest the process of forming a union.

And it’s critical they get the right people involved.

Rebney said a lot of the right things on the call, but his history doesn’t match his rhetoric.

At the end of this day, this is only going to work if a majority of fighters believe in the project and commit to support it. And the union or association must be as committed to improving the lots of the entry-level and mid-level fighters as they are to the stars.

It’s already been a long, strange journey and the fighters still haven’t gotten as far as first base.

We'll see in time.

Yeah, we'll have to see how this turns out.

Kevin Iole is a UFC puppet.

Posting any of his articles is a big joke.

reasons why kevin iole is a bitch

1. dana's puppet

2. no mind of his own

3. scared to criticise uFC incase his cred get pulled

4. gets paid by ufc

5. is a massive faggot

Its not the only article saying the same thing.

There are 3 entitys trying to do the same thing....its gonna be extremely expensive,and unless they just choose1 it will further complicate an already complicated situation.


All gsp and new guys did was do what's already been done twice this year.......until they actually do something all They did was announce another entity doing what two others are already trying to do.

TeamJohnPerretti wrote:Kevin Iole is a UFC puppet.

Posting any of his articles is a big joke.

He's not called "Kevin A Hole" for nothing. Remember, he is the same guy who wrote an article talking about how grateful we should be over watered down UFC events.

fka wrote:Its not the only article saying the same thing.

There are 3 entitys trying to do the same thing....its gonna be extremely expensive,and unless they just choose1 it will further complicate an already complicated situation.


All gsp and new guys did was do what's already been done twice this year.......until they actually do something all They did was announce another entity doing what two others are already trying to do.

typical FKA ...trashing the new union because Bjorn is involved...didn't see him pipe up when the other unions got announced did we?

Coker is shitting his pants at the thought of Bjorn and his uNION

WAR BJORN

Except bjorns union doesn't effect anyone outside the ufc........and doesn't actually effect anyone yet...


They made a formal announcement....just like two others this year 

Bjorn being on board is detrimental to their own case against the ufc.......all the wrong doings he is accusing ufc of was the exact stuff he was doing in Bellator.


They'd be way better off if he had nothing to do with this.


I truly hope a union works and progresses the fighters forward....unfortunately all three entitys have their own agendas.


Itd be better if all 3 just tried to unite and attack instead of jocky for position.

Maybe if the groups created an umbrella org for all of them. Another could idea would be supporting the #2 or til it is almost as big as the #1, than supporting the #3 til it's almost as big as #2, and so on. Multiple equal orgs competing would be great for fighters.

fka wrote:Bjorn being on board is detrimental to their own case against the ufc.......all the wrong doings he is accusing ufc of was the exact stuff he was doing in Bellator.

thats fucking absurd

Bellator wasnt making millions of dollars on PPV and shit.....it was an upcoming MMA promotion. You honestly never fucking hear any fighter complain about their pay during the Bjorn years. NOT FUCKING ONE yet with UFC you hear a new fighter complaining about making ends meet and how UFC cut there earnings with the bullshit sponsorship to reebok. Bjorn was all for fighters having their sponsors

sure bellator werent paying fighters a shit ton of money but how the fuck did you ever expect them to get to where they were spending moneys on show. which happens to a lot of mma orgs who burn out after 1 event in debt. WSOF are paying the exact same shit money....hell even RFA and legacy the numbers are less or the same....so to go after Bjorn for his pay is dumb.

hell even bjorn matched the UFC's offer regarding eddie and gave him a 50k signing bonus.

Actually its not just the pay,its the water tight contracts that were carbon copys of the ufc contracts.Suing eddie Alvarez comes to mind as well as bjorn claiming he paid for rampages knee surgerys when rampage paid for it.

Plenty of fighters and managers are completely overlooking this union exclusively because bjorn is a part of it.


Donald cerrone and gsp are back talking with the ufc,cerrone is already backtracking on his role and gsp is back negotiating with ufc.

This union isnt any more successful then the other two who already said much of the same.



Bjorn says at his best in Bellator he paid out close to 50% of revenue which isnt comparable because they weren't making much at all they HAD to payout 50% Just to pay the paychecks lol.Feel free to lookup payouts from bjorns tenure and the overall reported money made from the event .


They want to do a collective bargaining act which would be great if fighters weren't terrified to speak out and take control.

To even begin the process 30% of the UFC roster would need to fill out association cards accepting their terms and then that would be sent to UFC,if the UFC denies acknowledging this...
Then 51% of the roster would need to agree and repeat the process.I highly doubt they could get that many ppl to standup as in the past it never happens.

And then theres the whole problem of WMEIMG accepting that fighter represented by a rival company would use that rival company to restructure the pay and benefits.


I've said all along i think new UFC ownerd are pro union but i honestly think they can and will Just make something in house to detract fighters from accepting an outside union.If the UFC announced a pention or a health care plan i bet it would detour alot of guys from taking any risks with their career.


GSP s union definetly has the biggest names fighter wise who are still important now in mma but they have a huge negative in bjorns reputation.

The other fighter union made by fitch and cung le are still actively in a lawsuit with the UFC and also have much of the same goals and is the union i support most.

The other union repd by that bigtime sports lawyer is all BS in my eyes.


There will be a union and change coming but i just dont see bjork rebney being any part of the future of mma......

“A lot of people are scared, because they’ve been intimidated and they are afraid,” St-Pierre said. “And some of them, they ask me about Bjorn. I tell them that Bjorn is our technical strategy, he’s our technical adviser. “Because I think it’s important to mention – Bjorn is important for us because he’s been on the other side. He was a promoter before. So he knows the game very well, his knowledge is very, very important for us. And that’s what he brings.” wrote:

GSP on bjorn

he's a technical advisor he's not the head of this

for like a few things bjorn did...you find 100's things the UFC has done to their fighters

way way worse than Bjorn.

I never said he was the head he is part of it though and that's enough for people to be completely overlooking them.


The few things bjorn did are completely detrimental to his argument of fighters being treated any kind of way.


Ive read alot into this,and it sounds like as per usual your just running off your mouth cuz you saw an oppurtunity to have a yay bjorn moment......

Read into what actually needs to happen for the goals of this union and its not very likely in all honesty.....especially with bjorn envolved in any sort of capacity because he has done everything the ufc has done treating fighters poorly and super binding contracts.


I truly hope something happens positively out of this but its a long road ahead and alot of whatifs as well as relying on fighters who have yet to unite behind any of this.

bjorn = GOD

Coker = fat korean squirrel

stu3ufc wrote:bjorn = GOD

Coker = fat korean squirrel

lmao, Coker brings shame to the nation of Korea