Randy Couture reacts to the MMAAA

Randy Couture belongs on MMA’s Mount Rushmore. He is one of only three fighters ever to hold the UFC belt in two divisions. He’s a world-class coach. He’s a long-time advocate of increased fighter organization. And he’s bright, articulate, and thoughtful. In short, Randy Couture is Captain America – the guy you want on your side.

Couture is a member of the Robert Maysey founded the MMAFA, which seeks to extend the Muhammad Ali Act to mixed martial arts. Their aim is to keep fighters as independent contractors, establish an independent sanctioning and ranking system, and then let the free market do its thing. If you want to have champion Conor McGregor fight #1 contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, then promoters bid for the right, and whoever offers the highest purse gets to put on the fight. The MMAFA is also extremely supportive of the Federal anti-trust suit against the UFC.

The MMAFA was established in 2009. It is – very much – in it for the long haul.

Baseball agent Jeff Boriss established the PFA in August; he seeks to have UFC fighters reclassified as employees from their current independent contractor status, and form a union. He had said there would be a fighter board in place this month, but later said he did not want to offer names, for fear of retaliation. Recently, his most high profile fighter, Leslie Smith, apologized for introducing him to other fighters and severed ties, over a perceived violation of privacy. His attorney too severed ties. Boriss flatly denied leaking any fighter support information.

And today a group of five fighters announced the MMAAA, which seeks apparently to form a players association, an then petition the UFC for a 600% increase in the amount of revenue that goes to fighters, presumably with a threat of a strike if they don’t.

In an excellent interview with Amy Dash for the ever excellent BE, Couture discussed the current efforts to organize fighters. This is only a brief excerpt if what Couture has to say. If you are a hardcore fan of the sport, do yourself a favor and read everything he had to say.

We have a great respect for those five athletes, and we are happy and we are excited that they are standing up, said Couture. I think everybody has a question about what Bjorn’s motives are and what exactly is going on there and I think that’ll come out in time. His reputation as a promoter precedes him a little bit and so it’s interesting now that all the sudden he’s for fighter rights and all these things that obviously as the CEO of a major fight organization he didn’t demonstrate that same feeling.

Time will tell, motives will become clear and I think things will settle out. Jeff Borris and now Bjorn Rebney are certainly questions. Why are they involved? There’s a lot of questions for some of the motive there. I suspect that Bjorn is interested in creating an organization and being a promoter again and doing it with fighters, owned by fighters, sort of like what the Professional Bull Riders is. That’s my take on why Bjorn is involved here. It’s certainly more than just an advisor to fighters.

Everybody knows there is a longstanding feud between CAA, which happens to represent George and Cain and the WME, which happens to own the UFC now. The athletes association does seem to be focused more solely on the UFC, so that raises some questions.

With at least three efforts underway, at the very least, fighters have multiple avenues to consider what structural changes in the sport would be to their advantage.