Emanuel Newton On The UFC Reebok Deal: ‘It’s Like Being A Part Of A Cult’

Emanuel Newton is set to fight UFC veteran Phil Davis in the semifinals of a one-night, four-man tournament at Bellator MMA: Dynamite 1. In a recent interview, Newton spoke about the very controversial UFC – Reebok fighter sponsorship deal.

“I couldn’t imagine myself just all Reebok’d out,” Newton told MMA Fighting.com. “I haven’t worn Reebok since the old-school hardcore days back in like high school. Reebok is not my thing. And like I said, just looking around, everybody is dressed in the same thing, I feel like I’m part of a cult or something.”

Newton would explain that all MMA fighters are different, they need to be different to make the sport interesting and that the Reebok deal is changing the way the sport is seen by fans.

“Any MMA fighter you meet, we’re all gonna have really different personalities,” Newton said. “We’re all gonna be a little weird, a little different. To do what we do, you have to be. When you take that away from a fighter, you take away the individuality. You can say we all have different fingerprints; nobody has the same fingerprint. We’re not all meant to be the same. When you do that to people, it can mess up the whole feng shui of everything.”

Newton stated that he believes that Bellator MMA will receive more growth due in part of fighters now have a choice between UFC and Bellator MMA. Money talks and so do the fighters, which makes Newton believe that this is a game changer for Bellator MMA to be able to compete with the UFC.

“I’m excited for the growth of Bellator and I thank UFC for continuing to do this, because more fighters are going to come over to us and we’re going to continue to grow even more,” Newton said.

Bellator 142: Dynamite 1 takes place this Saturday night, September 19th at SAP Center in San Jose, California and the main card will air on Spike TV in prime time.