Randy Couture Cautions GSP Against Long Legal Battle With UFC

Former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre is just beginning what could be a nasty battle with the UFC, after the Canadian star announced he is now a free agent after his lawyers managed to terminate his contract with his longtime promoters. The UFC would soon dispute ‘GSP’s’ claims by issuing an official statement noting that St-Pierre is still under Zuffa contract.

One similar situation can be recalled back in 2007 when former light heavyweight champion Randy Couture resigned from the UFC after being dissatisfied with the UFC’s treatment of it’s fighters, as well as his desire to venture for a fight with mixed martial arts (MMA) heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko.

Couture recently joined Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (courtesy of MMA Fighting) to discuss the similarities between his and St-Pierre’s respective situations with the UFC:

“I certainly saw similarities, and I’m not privy to Georges’ contract and the language in Georges’ contract, but I’m sure it’s in many ways very similar to what I was dealing with back in 2007,” Couture said.

“And maybe, unfortunately for Georges, some of the issues that were pointed in out in their contracts back then that were the impetus for me declaring my free agency back then, and trying to make that Fedor fight happen and having injunctions filed and spending a lot of money on attorneys and stuff — a lot of those things were closed. They [changed their] contracts to some extent to try and prevent athletes from doing what I had been doing.

“But it’s definitely going to be an uphill climb. These guys have controlled fighters and controlled this situation for a long, long time. And they’re good at it. So, I think Georges is certainly going to be up against it.”

Couture’s standoff with the UFC lasted for about a year, a time frame in which he spent more than 0,000 in his battle with the promotion, after which he would ultimately return to the Octagon under a restructured deal to fight Brock Lesnar at UFC 91:

“I certainly hope that Georges is ready to spend a considerable amount of money in legal fees and all of that to fight this battle,” Couture said. “That’s the first thing. These guys are going to try and drag this out as long as they can drag this out and get Georges to spend as much money as they can possibly spend in hopes to bleed him, to make him want to give up and just give it up.

“”Obviously you’re still dealing with Dana White, but WME is another thing completely than Zuffa and the Fertittas, and I think that adds another layer to this whole thing. Georges is represented by CAA. CAA and WME go way back, as far as butting heads and kind of fighting over things, so I think there’s probably some of that going on here as well.”

After his failed effort to fight UFC brass Couture not only wasted half a million dollars, but he also wasted precious time he could have spent competing:

“I spent 13 months not competing,” Couture said. “At 44 years old, the clock was ticking. I spent more than $500,000 of my own money to try and fight over my interpretation of the language in the contract, just to continue for who knows how much longer to get a ruling and be able to go one way or the other. And at the end of the day, I wanted to compete. I wanted to fight. I’m a fighter.

“I still felt like I had competition that I wanted to get done and decided just to give it up, to hang it up, to not spend any more of my money fighting the system that was in place.”

When it all comes down to it, Couture states that if St-Pierre attempted to make a fight happen under any other promotion’s banner that he expects the UFC to file an injunction immediately. The process will be long and consuming, possibly taking up time from the former 170-pound champ’s career that he would much rather spend fighting:

“I’m sure that if he moves forward as a free agent, tries to make the fight that he wants to happen somewhere else, there will be injunctions filed, and then it’ll be a time period where they’ll be interviewing everybody,” Couture said. “There’s this time process too see any of that come before a judge and get ruled on, and just like in the situation I was in, how long is he going to want to wait?

“He’s been out for a little while now and not competed. How long is it that he wants to wait? How much money is that going to cost him to continue to fight that battle when he’s unable to fight and compete and make any money anywhere else? And then, what’s the likelihood? What if all of that [happens] and then they rule that the contract is still enforced and he still owes fights to WME and the UFC? Now he’s back to renegotiating and trying to make the fights happen that he wants to happen with that organization after all of that.”

While it may be many young fighter’s aspiration to one day fight for the UFC, Couture praises the work of other organizations such as the World Series of Fighting (WSOF) and Bellator who have seemed to have learned from the UFC’s mistakes. Despite all this, when it comes to the gold standard of MMA promotions, the UFC is still leading the charge by a sizable margin:

“I don’t think it’s their fault if the organization has ruled with an iron fist,” Couture said. “I’m an example of somebody that they’ve tried to black out, and that’s because of my stance with them almost from the very start over ancillary rights and the language in the contracts that they were trying to make me sign.

“Now the other promotions, like the World Series of Fighting and Bellator, have made up a lot ground because of things like the uniforms and the implementation of USADA without any athlete’s voice involved in that process. Some of the things that promotion is doing has allowed some of these other promotions to get traction. They’ve got good people behind them at NBC and with Viacom and the other places that they’re showing our sport. But at the end of the day, the gold standard, if you will, has been with the UFC.

“It’s synonymous with the sport in a lot of ways, so a lot of people aspire and want to fight in that organization. Well, if they want to fight in that organization, they’re going to have to sign that contract, as bad as that contract is.”

You can check out Couture’s interview on The MMA Hour here: