Dana White Reacts To Leslie Smith’s Labor Complaint Against UFC

UFC President Dana White has given his reaction to the ongoing situation involving Leslie Smith.

If you recall, Smith was slated to fight women’s bantamweight competitor Aspen Ladd at UFC Fight Night 128.

Things got interesting once Ladd missed weight by 1.8 pounds for her preliminary card bout. This led to Smith trying to get some leverage on the promotion by wanting her contract to be extended as this bout marked her last fight on her current deal.

The UFC reacted in a weird way as they decided to pay Smith her show money and win bonus for the fight but by doing this and not extending her contract, she is now a free agent.

Moving along to last week, Smith had filed a complaint against Zuffa, which is the UFC parent company, over unfair labor practices.

In the complaint, she is alleging that the promotion terminated her employment to retaliate due to her efforts with Project Spearhead.

It should be noted that she is referred to as an employee in the complaint which is different to the independent contractor status Zuffa applies to its fighters.

This leads us to White, who recently made an appearance on the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast this week to talk to former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra and comedian Jim Norton about various topics.

In this interview, White made it well known that although he is aware of Smith’s legal filing, he doesn’t put any focus on it.

“Apparently she did (file a complaint),” White said on the podcast (transcript courtesy of MMAJunkie). “I don’t know that much about this to talk about it. I literally don’t know anything about it.

I know that she’s upset and she filed something. She’s suing us or filed something with somebody. I don’t know. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t focus on that (expletive) anymore. That’s not my problem. That’s somebody else’s problem. I get to do all the fun (expletive).”