NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with MMA pioneer and fighter Carlos Newton.

He is one of the many people working with those who have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) alleging illegal market monopolization. This lawsuit was filed December 16 by fighters Cung Le, Nate Quarry, and Jon Fitch, who seek "to represent a class of similarly situated current and former UFC professional combatants". A virtually identical lawsuit was filed December 22 by fighters Dennis Hallman and Javier Vazquez, with more fighters expected to join these legal actions.

The original suit is entitled Cung Le, Nathan Quarry, Jon Fitch, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Zuffa, LLC, d/b/a Ultimate Fighting Championship and UFC, Defendant. It can be read, in a PDF file, here.

We spoke with Carlos Newton, who attended the December 16 news conference in San Jose, California, announcing this lawsuit, by phone Tuesday.

Although he is not a plaintiff in this suit, Carlos Newton played a key role behind the scenes for some time in getting this suit filed.

"The suit that is being filed is a culmination of my hard work, and getting it filed was a great milestone and I was able to witness it," he said.

"It's something I pretty much decided I was going to do a couple of years back, and I just had to figure out how I was going to do it. And getting Cung Le, Jon Fitch, and Nate Quarry to file that suit on behalf of all of us was the first step in doing that. I thank those guys for coming forward."

Calling these three fighters "the face of this whole endeavor", he stated that the overall aim of this suit is to "fix this sport and get it on the right path on behalf of all the fighters in the industry."

We discussed how other sports are not structured like MMA, how MMA promoters are not legally held "in check" like boxing promoters are, why UFC is the "fastest growing monopoly in the world", why public perception of this suit will be favorable to it, and much more.

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Labels: Carlos Newton, Cung Le, Eddie Goldman, Jon Fitch, lawsuit, MMA fighters, monopoly, Nate Quarry, No Holds Barred, UFC