Randy
Couture isn’t surprised about the
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s spat with Francis
Ngannou given his own history of the promotion.
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Ngannou exited the promotion as the heavyweight champion in January
2023 over a lengthy contract dispute. Couture, meanwhile, had a
lengthy legal battle with the UFC in 2007, even
publicly resigning for a brief period. Ngannou had fought for
rights to simultaneously compete in boxing along with other
stipulations like health insurance for fighters and an advocate to
represent fighters at contract meetings.
Ngannou went on join rival promotion
Professional Fighters League, where he will make his debut
against the 2023 season heavyweight king Renan
Ferreira on Oct. 18 in Saudi Arabia. Former UFC champ Israel
Adesanya, who considers himself one of the first three Africa
UFC champs along with Ngannou and Kamaru
Usman, recently
called out the promotion for trying to erase “The Predator’s”
legacy.
And Couture isn’t surprised given the way his legacy was handled by
the promotion as well. The former heavyweight champ and Hall of
Famer has very few UFC-made highlights of him on YouTube today.
Couture had been at odds with Dana White from the very beginning
over ancillary rights. The promotion basically wanted fighters to
hand over rights to their names and likenesses in perpetuity, which
Couture wasn’t willing to do. While he managed to preserve his
ancillary rights, he eventually parted ways with the promotion,
also giving up his duties as an analyst. Couture has previously
noted while he managed to hold on to his ancillary rights, the UFC
made sure no other fighter ever would.
Speaking of the Ngannou situation, Couture recalled the promotion’s
beefs with other former stars like Tito Ortiz,
Chuck
Liddell and Frank
Shamrock. While Ortiz exited the UFC over a contract dispute,
Liddell never got the lifetime position in the promotion he was
allegedly promised by White, who has consistently dismissed
Shamrock as someone ducking Ortiz. Couture claims it’s the
promotion’s modus operandi that led to the class action lawsuit by
more than 1,200 fighters.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Couture told Sportskeeda MMA. “They’ve done their best to
try wash me out of the books as well. That’s how they treat anybody
that doesn’t go along with their good old boys club. That’s the way
they handle it and if you’re in the house with Dana, that’s how
you’re gonna be treated. That’s just the way it is. So I’m not
surprised at all. And there will be many others coming into the
same boat, be a persona non grata as I am and have been. Because I
held their feet over the contracts for ancillary rights and what
those ancillary rights meant to me. And wasn’t just willing to let
them do with me whatever they wanted. And if I had I wouldn’t have
gone very far. Because they didn’t think I was marketable as a
40-year-old heavyweight champion. And obviously I kept proving them
wrong and winning fights they didn’t think I was gonna win.
“So you’re absolutely correct, I’m not surprised that that’s how it
has gone down. Chuck [Liddell] and so many other fighters, Tito
[Ortiz], Frank
Shamrock, there’s a long list of guys that fought for the
company, did their best to promote the company and the sport in a
positive way and at the end of the day they really got dumped on.
And that’s the [modus operandi], that’s why there’s a huge class
action lawsuit hanging out there… because of the way that company
does business and the lack of transparency in our sport across the
board. That’s what the Ali Act and amending the Ali Act would do is
create that transparency.”