Originally Posted by ArrowheadHawk:
Sounds like he wants to save his Benjamin's
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk
Money is more important to him than to Conor. It was only his second real payday. Meanwhile Conor had 205 on the line, tons in his bank account and whatever crazy amount of money he stands to make next month. He'll pay a fine to fight in NY. Diaz is OK with having a suspension and more community service. [Reply]
hmmmm, interesting. GSP's argument is that he signed his contract before Reebok and he never signed the Reebok deal. He says he is entitled to be offered a fight without Reebok restrictions, and since they did not offer such a fight, the UFC breached his contract. (he also said he would only sign the Reebok deal if the UFC paid him what he lost in sponsors, but the UFC wouldn't do that either)
I guess I'll wait for the lawyers to tell us if he has a case or not. He is able to go to court because he's wealthy, comfortable, and doesn't need to fight. Everyone else on the roster needed the work and just signed the Reebok deal so they could keep working and get paid. [Reply]
The UFC disputes GSP's declaration that his contract is void and that he is now a free agent. Statement coming out soon.
Shocking, yes I know.
edit:
Originally Posted by UFC:
Georges St-Pierre remains under an existing agreement with Zuffa, LLC as his MMA promoter. Zuffa intends to honor its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same.
Some more interesting details. The biggest problem is that GSP had a huge sponsorship deal with Under Armour for an enormous amount of money per fight, but he wasn't going to get that if he had to wear Reebok. UFC was unwilling to match that, they figured they had the contract and leverage, so GSP sat out until the UFC realized that they couldn't pressure him into signing the Reebok deal.
So, GSP started negotiating with Lorenzo Fertitta on a new deal that wouldn't give him everything he wanted, but get him closer to being made whole. When the UFC was sold, the new owners pulled the offer that Lorenzo gave to GSP.
So, GSP hired a lawyer to look at his contract. The lawyer said he thought he had a case and gave the UFC a deadline to offer GSP a fight under the old terms or they would declare a breach and terminate the contract. Right before the deadline, the UFC asked GSP if he wanted to fight Lawler, but with Reebok. Ignoring the Reebok issue, GSP said that he knew Lawler was recently pulled from a card and wanted to take some time off, so they didn't even see that as an actual, real serious offer of a fight. After the deadline, GSP's lawyer informed the UFC that they considered the contract to be terminated and then GSP went on Helwani's show to talk about it. [Reply]