Zuffa vs. Couture: The Actual Lawsuit

When we last discussed Zuffa’s lawsuit against Randy Couture, our only source was an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Now, thanks to TMZ, we’ve seen the lawsuit with our own eyes (it’s conveniently PDF’d for you here). And after reading it, we immediately remembered why we never went to law school. But we were able to pick up a few interesting details:

— The lawsuit is seeking damages in excess of $50,000, not $10,000.

— Zuffa has hired Donald J. Campbell and J. Colby Williams as their representation.

— The lawsuit implicates Sherdog as the medium by which Randy Couture first began “implementing a tortious scheme and artifice whereby he and others acting on his behalf [fabricated] a false and fictitious history of events in which Couture was purportedly lied to and otherwise purposefully abused by Zuffa in a series of bad faith acts and unfair dealings.” Bastards! They get all the publicity!

— The parties who conspired with Couture are the “Does and Roe Corporations LLC” I think that means “to be named later,” but I’m no lawyer, and Google comes up with nothing, so I’m not 100% clear. But anyway, the lawsuit is referring to the people who hooked him up with HDNet so he could air his grievances in a public (or at least cable TV) forum. The accused “sought to maximize the damage inflicted upon Plaintiffs by arranging with HD Net TV to broadcast Couture’s remarks live and to later rebroadcast them during the course of an MMA event being presented by an UFC competitor.”

— Part of the financial judgement the UFC is seeking is to repay the costs that they incurred when they had to hold their response press conference (satellite uplink, production trucks, personnel, etc.).

— “Zuffa will further suffer a loss of prestige within the MMA community which will produce the consequential effect of inducing others not to deal with Zuffa.” Well, they may have a point there…

— Zuffa seems to accept Couture’s resignation from the organization on October 11, 2007, but argues that a one-year Restricted Period — in which he isn’t allowed to promote any events, programs, products or services related to unarmed combat — immediately kicked in. Couture’s sponsorship of the IFL’s “Xtreme Couture Team” was “the most recent and notorious” beach of “his covenant.”

See? Even better than NyQuil!