Should the UFC Have the Power to Veto Outside Projects?

?Rampage Jackson's decision to pull out of UFC 107 in order to star in The A-Team has those inside and outside the company considering how these incidents can be avoided in the future. The guys over at MMA Payout think the UFC should add some kind of clause to its contracts that would tie fighters to a certain date in the future.

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In response to this article, I'd say the UFC brass is already on top of things and has already been looking into adding a clause to all of their contracts. If the potential is there for the UFC to lose money (or not make as much as they should) then of course they're going to look to cover their own butts. What business wouldn't?

I would be pissed if I was Strikeforce and Cung Le kept playing bit parts in movies no one was going to watch, but the UFC is going to benefit from Rampage playing Mr.T's character in the A-Team, this is another big step to gain fan base and make fighters mainstream stars, making them more money and making PPV's bigger. I do not care if it was a month away if the Black van is waiting get on it Rampage.

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Posted by McBee

I would be pissed if I was Strikeforce and Cung Le kept playing bit parts in movies no one was going to watch, but the UFC is going to benefit from Rampage playing Mr.T's character in the A-Team, this is another big step to gain fan base and make fighters mainstream stars, making them more money and making PPV's bigger. I do not care if it was a month away if the Black van is waiting get on it Rampage.

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If they are going to benefit from it then they should have a say in whether or not it goes down. They might have rather had him fight rashad sooner because the hype would be fresh from TUF.

The NFL wouldn't accept players missing games to do movies and MMA shouldn't either.

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Posted by bjj1605

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Posted by McBee

I would be pissed if I was Strikeforce and Cung Le kept playing bit parts in movies no one was going to watch, but the UFC is going to benefit from Rampage playing Mr.T's character in the A-Team, this is another big step to gain fan base and make fighters mainstream stars, making them more money and making PPV's bigger. I do not care if it was a month away if the Black van is waiting get on it Rampage.

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If they are going to benefit from it then they should have a say in whether or not it goes down. They might have rather had him fight rashad sooner because the hype would be fresh from TUF.

The NFL wouldn't accept players missing games to do movies and MMA shouldn't either.

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The NFL has a season MMA is year round and

the entertainment industry is hard to pin down on dates and acceptance and

your first sentence does not make much sense, because they benefit from it they should not care as much,

in a perfect world both would have gone down but this is what happened.

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Posted by bjj1605

The NFL wouldn't accept players missing games to do movies and MMA shouldn't either.

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You can't compare the two sports. NFL games are played weekly. Fighters have months off between fights. If an NFL player wants to film a movie during the months off between seasons, no one would have a problem with it.

doing movies or whatever in your downtime, fine, cancelling a fight , a main event , a fight a tv show is based on to do a movie, no good, grounds for dismissle
you have a responsibility, other athletes are not missing games to do other junk, they do other junk in the off season
granted mma doesnt have an offseason but how about between fights, do the fight and then say hey "im gonna need some time off to do this or that" granted
issue resolved

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Posted by Jesse_Canadian_MMA

doing movies or whatever in your downtime, fine, cancelling a fight , a main event , a fight a tv show is based on to do a movie, no good, grounds for dismissle
you have a responsibility, other athletes are not missing games to do other junk, they do other junk in the off season
granted mma doesnt have an offseason but how about between fights, do the fight and then say hey "im gonna need some time off to do this or that" granted
issue resolved

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I do not think hollywood would be easy to schedule inbetween four fights a year, the fight is still a couple months off I do not think it is that big of a deal, especially because of how mainstream the ATeam and Mr.T is, this movie and role especially will benefit the UFC

I'm really dissapointed in Rampage.
From the TUF preview it looked like him and Rashad were going to have a really good rivalry going.
Now,now matter how good or bad this next season of TUF is,i'm going to feel like the whole thing is going to be an anti-climax for a fight that isn't going to happen.
The movie could be good for MMA,or it could just end up being bad for Rampage's image.
Is the movie going to be campy fun or attempt to be serious?
Probably a little of both,but i'm not interested in an A team revamp.
I would much rather see Rampage fight Rashad.

I see it from both sides


It would certainly benefit the UFC to have exposure for their own fighters if those fighters are in movies. However, it could come back and bite them if the fighter decides to stick with film.. There really is nothing they can do with the second point and I wouldn't blame any fighter for leaving fighting for making more money in film.

Having a clause in their contract saying no outside work is a bit of a double standard when the UFC "lays" fighters off to film TUF. I know the UFC has their hand in TUF, but what it really comes down to is the fact the fighter is away from fighting for a longer than usual time. Having a clause in their contract that prevents fighters from doing outside jobs would really increase the risk for a fighter signing on with them and may actually prevent some bigger named fighters from signing. I think it would give them too much power over the lives of their fighters.

Personally, I don't care about Rampage. I would not be upset if I ever saw him fight again. There are a lot of exciting fighters out there to fill the putative void. Likewise, I have no interest in the A-Team. It's a show I watched and loved as a kid, but that is it.

the way i see it is if you are fighting for the UFC that is your job and your boss tells you what you can and cant do. like if i want a day off work and my boss says no well guess what im working.

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Posted by loonytnt

the way i see it is if you are fighting for the UFC that is your job and your boss tells you what you can and cant do. like if i want a day off work and my boss says no well guess what im working.

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Would you think it was fair if you worked from Mon-Fri (regular 40 hour week), but you wanted to make a little extra on the side and your boss told you were not allowed to work (elsewhere) on weekends?

If and when the UFC offers guaranteed money for guaranteed fight dates, they should have the option of payment forfeiture if their athlete acts in bad faith and doesn't show up for their fight date.

But here's the deal--fights happen all year long--there is no "fight season" and money IS NOT guaranteed. Not only that but a fight you THOUGHT you might fght in on a Tuesday, the 10th might get cancelled by the promotion leaving you no recompanse.

So, if the promotion can change their schedule, and not guarantee your money===then as an athlete/entertainer you should be entitled to pursue multiple revenue streams outside of the purview of and within agreed upon contractual provisions.

If anyone here is in the entertainment industry then you all get multiple revenue streams. These are extremely important for the entertainer and their longevity and earningpower. Just ask Tony Hawk worth,180 million, if doing more than "JUST SKATING" worked out for him.

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Posted by McBee

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Posted by bjj1605

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Posted by McBee

I would be pissed if I was Strikeforce and Cung Le kept playing bit parts in movies no one was going to watch, but the UFC is going to benefit from Rampage playing Mr.T's character in the A-Team, this is another big step to gain fan base and make fighters mainstream stars, making them more money and making PPV's bigger. I do not care if it was a month away if the Black van is waiting get on it Rampage.

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If they are going to benefit from it then they should have a say in whether or not it goes down. They might have rather had him fight rashad sooner because the hype would be fresh from TUF.

The NFL wouldn't accept players missing games to do movies and MMA shouldn't either.

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The NFL has a season MMA is year round and

the entertainment industry is hard to pin down on dates and acceptance and

your first sentence does not make much sense, because they benefit from it they should not care as much,

in a perfect world both would have gone down but this is what happened.

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I have to admit its kind of funny to claim that my sentence doesn't make sense and then make an argument saying that MMA is year round and football isn't, therefore its okay for mma fighters to blow of their contests and not okay for nfl players. If an NFL player were to blow off training camp or a team meeting it wouldn't be okay either. And just because MMA doesn't have a season doesn't mean fighters don't have down time. When opportunities arise they need to make sure they don't already have a conflicting event scheduled in their primary occupation FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fact of the matter is Rampage agreed to fight and canceled it for a secondary project. The UFC may gain some publicity from it, however they will also take a hit because this fight won't be as fresh off the reality show thats hyping it.
Look at matt hughes vs matt sera. That fight seemed very exciting right after the show. Then a bunch of things happened that kept that fight from materializing. By the time it did there was much less anticipation and the sales for the fight were likely hurt because of it. What could have been a main event on its own now needed to be fluffed by a title match.

The reason my sentence made sense is because any decision that a fighter makes that will affect the UFC is the UFC's business. Its their job to weigh the potential benefits and losses in the scenario. Not rampage's and not yours. So if you think about it what my sentence did was state an argument about the central issue of this thread. Essentially, yet in other words, I was saying the UFC deserves a right to Veto Outside Projects (take a gander at the topic of the thread prior to attacking peoples arguments).

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Posted by Rush

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Posted by loonytnt

the way i see it is if you are fighting for the UFC that is your job and your boss tells you what you can and cant do. like if i want a day off work and my boss says no well guess what im working.

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Would you think it was fair if you worked from Mon-Fri (regular 40 hour week), but you wanted to make a little extra on the side and your boss told you were not allowed to work (elsewhere) on weekends?

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pretty sure thats a common practice called exclusive employement

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Posted by bjj1605

pretty sure thats a common practice called exclusive employement

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I'm sure it's not as common as you think, othwise how else are all these people working 2 or 3 jobs?

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Posted by Rush

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Posted by bjj1605

pretty sure thats a common practice called exclusive employement

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I'm sure it's not as common as you think, othwise how else are all these people working 2 or 3 jobs?

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Agreed. It's a common practice for an employer to not allow you to work for competition. If anything, I'd say it's pretty uncommon (or rare) for an employer to not allow you to have an "outside project".

Agreed. Unless contractually stated (remember a contract is a mutually agreed upon set of terms NOT a one sided statement), an employer can not keep you from doing multiple jobs or starting your own business, for example. If a contract DOES have a clause that says you can't work, usually it will say you can't do any work that will cause you to be unable to perform full time work and responsibilities.