Jon Fitch, Christian Wellisch and possibly others cut by UFC

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

From MMAMania.com

 

Former number one UFC welterweight contender Jon Fitch was today handed his walking papers for refusing to sign an agreement that would give the promotion exclusive lifetime video game rights to his name and likeness, MMAmania.com can exclusively confirm.

 

Christian Wellisch — who also didn’t ink the paperwork — was also released. Others who do not sign the agreement could also be let go in the future.

 

Fitch and members of his camp were not immediately available for comment on the startling development.

 

While the full details are a little murky at this time, Fitch was apparently approached about the issue when he turned in his signed bout agreement to fight Akihiro Gono at UFC 94: “St. Pierre vs. Penn 2″ on January 31. And when he and his representatives attempted to negotiate the video game deal it was all or nothing.

 

He didn’t sign it and was terminated shortly therefafter.

 

Fitch — who is tied with Royce Gracie and Anderson Silva for the most consecutive wins in UFC history (eight) — recently lost a gutsy unanimous decision to welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre at UFC 87: “Seek and Destroy” on August 9.

 

The former Purdue University wrestler just returned from a trip to Thailand to refine his Muay Thai and stand up skills. For the time being he may have to now put those skills to the test outside the Octagon for the first time since 2006.

 

He’s among the top 170-pound fighters in the world and should land on his feet sooner rather than later. Talk about a big loss for the UFC … and Jon Fitch.

 

More on this breaking exclusive news as soon as we receive it. Hopefully cooler heads soon prevail

[Youth N Asia 0]

Wow...fuck you UFC. Just don't put him in the damn game then. This will be a huge pick up for another company

[Mik 0]

Dick move. Asking for lifetime rights?

[Ced 0]

Seems like there has to be more than just a video game deal, but it sucks that Fitch got dropped. The guy is a resilient sumbitch and looked good in the middle of the WW pack. He'll find work elsewhere easily and probably will get called back because UFC's weird like that.

[Lei Tong 0]

Randy Couture didn't want to give his likeness to a UFC video game, and you know what happened to him?

 

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

If this is over the video game, then this is example #1 why having one major company and no others will cripple the sport.

 

Atleast right now Fitch can still go to Affliction or maybe even Sengoku and make a living, but if UFC's the only game in town (and they obviously believe themselves to be if they're doing this) then it's going to be a nightmare for fighters.

 

We'll see how this plays out...I can't imagine MMA journalists (Well, real ones) are going to just roll over on this storyline if it's really over the video game.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Pff, that's just an excuse to pimp Enson.

 

Stupid move by UFC here, Dana's been accused of power-tripping and this is actually a legitimate case of that in my opinion.

[starvenger 0]

Generally speaking, if I don't see it on Junkie, 5Oz or the Observer I won't believe it.

 

That being said, with three AKA guys at 170 in the UFC you figure something's gotta give.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

I'm extremely pissed off! I can't believe they cut Christian Wellisch!

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Congrats, you're about the billionth poster online to crack that joke and it wasn't funny the first time.

 

This is FUCKED if it pans out.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Why would he even have a problem with it, though? It's not like some organization is going to pop up and get a video game... not in his lifetime...

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Morals? Principles? Likely getting paid for a one-shot deal that in actuality would be a lifetime deal? I'm just guessing here.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Seems to me to be another avenue for making money.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I'm reading conflicting reports. Some say this is just over a video game. Others say that this is a deal where if anybody outside UFC were to use this persons name of likeness that UFC would get a cut, hence why I've read in some places that GSP's manager told him to turn down the deal (which, if true would explain Dana's shit-talking of said manager lately.)

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I, as much as I'm a fan of MMA on free tv thought it was kind of a dick move to show the UFN in July opposite the Affliction card in a weak attempt to siphon off viewers from the PPV audience.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

If some of the more dramatic rumors come true and UFC loses Fitch, Velasquez, Koscheck and Swick.....wow. That'd be insane. Only problem here is that nobody gives a shit about Sengoku, K1 wouldn't utilize any of the WW's, StrikeForce can't afford them, Elite is dead and Afflictions status is very much in question.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

There has to be more to the story if that's true. And Kos would be the biggest loss there.

 

I think Cain is just as big, it's hard to find good heavyweights... But good, young HW prospects who can pan out of the best in the division? It's like a needle in a haystack.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

The problem for WW's like Koscheck and Fitch is outside UFC there's Jake Shields and.......nobody. At least Cain would have challenges in the forms of Arlovski, Cro-Cop, Barnett, Bigfoot Silva and obviously Fedor. If this is true then his future is certainly the least-bleak of all.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Meltzer's confirmed it.

 

Jesus christ. I feel really bad for the fighters. It's either sign a bullshit agreement or get cut when UFC knows full well probably within six months or so they won't have any place to make a living.

 

If the agreement was for a few years, or even ten, I doubt this would happen, but LIFETIME? You're signing away a major possible source of revenue. If one of these guys were to star in a major movie after they stop fighting or during (not out of the realm of possibility) they wouldn't even be able to appear in their own fucking video game from the movie. You couldn't even use their likeness.

 

No contenders to another MMA game could ever use any of these guys, LONG after UFC's forgotten about them (and they will) and the royalties in it disapear.

 

UFC's tripping worse then I think I've ever heard WWE do.

[mfn 0]

Did Dana White start hanging out with Vince McMahon recently?

[NoCalMike 0]

Dana White was just on Sports talk 1140 being interviewed by "Carmichael Dave" here in Sacramento and this subject came up.

 

I think Koscheck was supposed to headline the Fight for the Troops show....so now who knows....

 

I missed most of the interview but Carmichael Dave said the interview should be uploaded on the website HERE within the hour.

 

It seems Dana White is starting to get BUTT-hurt that fighters are starting to demand a little more for fighting in the UFC. I mean 10 years ago, guys were probably happy just to have something to do besides 3rd shift at the tire shop(and to a certain extent it's still like that for lesser known and undercard fighters)

[Mik 0]

And heerrrrreeeeee's Dana.....

 

"Affliction is still out there trying to build its company. Let [Fitch] go work with them. Let him see what he thinks of those [expletives]. [Expletive] him. These guys aren't partners with us. [Expletive] them. All of them, every last [expletive] one of them."

 

"We're looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I'm just so [expletive] sick of this [expletive] it's not even funny," White said from Honolulu, where he flew Wednesday from Toronto to hold a news conference to announce the B.J. Penn-Georges St. Pierre fight for UFC 94 on Jan. 31 in Las Vegas.

 

Velasquez, one of the sport's rising stars, clearly is on the outs with White. White said Zinkin wanted standard language that is part of every UFC fighter's contract removed from Velasquez's deal.

 

"Can you believe that?" White said. "Chuck Liddell has that language in his contract. Randy Couture has it. Anderson Silva has it. And Cain [expletive] Velasquez, with two [expletive] fights, wants us to change it for him? That's [expletive] nuts. He can get the [expletive] out.

 

Actually, the whole MMAJunkie article has a ton of great stuff in it and addresses everything brought up already in this thread: http://mmajunkie.com/news/13291/ufc-drops-...ka-fighters.mma

 

So it looks like all AKA fighters get the axe except Hawk's favorite, Mike Swick. Like a cockroach.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Well boo [expletive]ing hoo Dana. Sp the guys didn't want you plastering their pictures on everything from now until the end of time and them not getting a piece of the action? Why, the NERVE of them!

 

I like watching UFC when I can, but Dana's "I'm a tough guy GRRRRR!" act is starting to wear very thin with me.

[starvenger 0]

Dana is very quickly becoming just completely unlikeable. Before he was a hard ass but what he was doing was typically what was best. Now it seems he's gone into business for himself.

Maybe not business for himself (since the Fertitas are the majority owners), but the McMahon Syndrome is definitely there.

 

Is Cain definitely gone?

[Lord of The Curry 0]

From what I've read Cain, Fitch and Wellisch are gone, Koscheck looks to be on the outs.

 

So is Swick leaving AKA? Because that'd seem to be the only way to avoid the axe.

[Mik 0]

Even more likely is that they don't want him back. He called up and said that he considers himself a part of the UFC family and will do the kind of business that THEY want to do.

 

Rest of AKA: "What the fuck, man?"

 

Kos is a bitch, I bet. He'll break. The rest of the team? I mean, what do you pick? Your team or the potential max revenue stream? Me personally... I'd probably be finding a new camp.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

So I guess Wellisch agreed to the deal but UFC cut him anyways, Fitch suspects to "send a message to myself and others in the camp." That shit has mafia tactics written all over it.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Fitch speaks out more:

 

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templa...30&zoneid=2

 

QUOTE

"This is like over the course of two days, three days," Fitch explained about the release. "It had to do with Dana (White) calling my managers and immediately saying, 'we need to get him to sign this contract' and 'it's a big favor to me.' Then we asked him, 'Why do you need this contract signed?'

 

"Then we finally asked, after reading through the contract, why can't we negotiate for different terms? Because it asked me for a lifetime contract for the video games, so they would have exclusive rights to use our likeness for these video games and we couldn't go and do any other video games ever again in our lifetime."

 

Before anything was decided, Fitch says his managers tried to re-negotiate a different deal from the lifetime contract, but an ultimatum was soon made.

 

"So basically we said we weren't cool with that deal and why can't we do it for five or 10 years? Why does it have to be a lifetime deal? Their next response was, 'either you guys are in or you're out' and 'sign this or you're going to get dropped from the UFC,'" said Fitch. "So we hear that and we didn't even think they were serious. Why would you want to release fighters at our level over something like that? Doesn't make any sense.

 

"Within two phone calls, it got to 'sign this or you guys are out

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Sam Caplan is reporting that UFC is dealing with some issues with THQ involving exclusive rights to all their fighters in terms of image rights and likenesses:

 

It appears that the UFC may have gotten itself into a bit of a predicament as sources indicate that THQ, who is producing promotion’s upcoming video game release “UFC Undisputed 2009,” operated under the auspices that they had exclusive rights to the likenesses of all fighters on the UFC roster. Five Ounces of Pain has been informed that THQ was none too pleased upon learning that rival Electronic Arts has commenced work on an MMA game of its own and that plans are in motion to involve a great deal of recognizable fighters. The sources have indicated that in addition to names such as Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, and Frank Shamrock that known UFC fighters could potentially be featured as well.

 

The fact that THQ had been promised exclusive access to the likeness of the entire UFC roster when the UFC wasn’t in a position to make such an assurance is believed to be a reason why the promotion has acted in haste in regards to demanding its fighters sign over their likenesses for “Undisputed.”

 

 

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Sherdog has updated their main page that UFC and Fitch's management team are "in talks" right now but won't say what the discussion pertains to.