Two additional class action complaints have been filed against the UFC over the past week, with Misha Cirkunov and Phil Davis leading the respective suits.
The Cirkunov complaint was filed last Friday and proposes a class action involving current and former UFC fighters who are excluded from the ongoing class action suit led by Kajan Johnson against the UFC.
The Johnson case covers fighters that competed in the UFC between July 1 to the present but includes many fighters who signed arbitration clauses in their contracts and/or class action waivers and would be unable to recoup any monies from a potential settlement or ruling.
Cirkunov would be one of those fighters who signed a UFC contract in September 2020 with those clauses and provisions, and argues that those clauses should be thrown out. He fought for the UFC from August 2015 until October 2022 and had thirteen fights with the promotion.
Because, due to the UFC’s Class-wide conduct, all Class members’ Arbitration Clauses and Class-Action Waivers are procedurally and substantively unconscionable under Nevada law, these agreements cannot be enforced, and neither Plaintiff nor the Class can be compelled to arbitrate this dispute.
The complaint outlines how UFC has managed such control over the industry through its use of restrictive contracts and provisions, including the champion’s clause, an exclusivity clause, an exclusive negotiating window, and a promotion clause.
The UFC has locked up the supply of Professional MMA Fighters through, first, a series of acquisitions designed to remove competing rivals and would-be rivals and thereby championship titles from the marketplace by acquiring the contracts of Professional MMA Fighters and shuttering the acquired promotions; and second, by, inter alia, forcing all UFC Fighters to enter into long-term exclusive contracts that bar them from working with would-be rival MMA Promotion companies all but indefinitely.
Cirkunov is attempting to have this case certified as a class action and seeks treble damages as a result of the antitrust violations alleged, along with “reasonable costs of this action, including attorney fees”. They are also attempting to invalidate the arbitration clause and/or class action waiver language in the UFC contracts under Nevada and/or federal law.
Phil Davis has filed a separate complaint where he is attempting to form a class of non-UFC fighters, arguing that the restrictive practices of the promotion and acquiring monopsony power have harmed fighters outside of the company.
Plaintiff Davis has had and will continue to have fewer opportunities to compete against top Fighters and advance his career. His future earnings and opportunities under his current contract with PFL (and any future MMA Promoter) will be similarly suppressed. By depriving Davis’s MMA Promotions of access to a critical mass of top Fighters necessary to mount a successful production, and by refusing to co-promote events with PFL or other MMA Promotions, the UFC’s anticompetitive Scheme has stunted Plaintiff’s career and robbed him of the opportunity to compete for a competitive wage.
Davis, an NCAA Division I champion and All-American from Penn State, fought for the UFC from 2010 until 2015. He left the UFC and joined Bellator, and became its light heavyweight champion, and fought fifteen times before the dissolution of the promotion. He debuted for the PFL earlier this month in its Light Heavyweight Grand Prix.
The Davis complaint is not seeking damages but rather, reforms to the restrictive practices exercised by the UFC:
Plaintiff, on behalf of himself and other members of the Class, seeks injunctive relief barring Defendants from engaging in the anticompetitive Scheme alleged herein. Specifically, Plaintiff, on behalf of himself and other members of the Class, seeks injunctive relief in the form of changes to Defendants’ business practices, including the elimination of restrictive and/or exclusionary clauses from Defendants’ agreements with Professional MMA Fighters; the elimination of arbitration clauses and class action waivers from Defendants’ agreements with Professional MMA Fighters; and the required insertion of a provision in all existing and future contracts between the UFC and any of its fighters relating to bouts of a “sunset provision,” that would allow the fighter the option to terminate the contract with no penalty within one year after its execution.
The attempt is for UFC to lose the ability to sign fighters to long-term contracts, with fighters having control of their destiny and only being exclusive to the UFC for one-year periods at a time.
The class of fighters would include those who fought for the UFC from May 2021 to the present, but excluding those still under UFC contract today as well as fighters part of Kajan Johnson and Misha Cirkunov suits.
Both complaints were filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada, with the plaintiffs represented by lawyers Eric Cramer and Michael Gayan.
