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Or, it’s too early for my brain to be working.”

Hehehe. Naw, I got them right. Ripe is basically too early to do anything. Ripeness would be like me suing someone because they have a cracked sidewalk outside their house, but I (nor anyone else) didn’t fall and injure myself because of it. Since nothing happened, it’s ripe. Mootness (as in a “moot point”) is too late. Like let’s say I applied to attend university, and everything was in order (I applied in time, my grades were great, etc.) but I didn’t get it. I claim racial discrimination, I take them too court, and the school then says “fuck it” and let’s me in. Fast forward a few years, it’s my second to last semester there, but I am STILL taking them to court for it. It would get thrown out because it’s moot. Why should they still be sued if they did the right thing and let me in? And all of this comes back to the issue of standing, which is your right to sue in a given situation. I don’t think Zuffa has the standing quite yet, this is still too ripe of a case. Yeah, I know a lot about standing, mootness, and ripeness. I got an A in Environmental Law and Policy (even though I am a Republican) and standing, mootness, and ripeness are a big thing in Environmental law.

“How do TNA and ROH contracts compare to WWE contracts? I haven’t followed pro wrestling in the past few years so I can’t say I know much about their contracts. What I do know is that WWE wrestlers are basically treated like circus animals.”

WWE has guaranteed dates and downside guarantee pay for their contracted wrestlers. TNA and ROH do not (I bet TNA’s higher stars do). ROH and TNA even though they let their wrestlers wrestle for some indy companies, they dictate WHERE you can and can not wrestle. So if you are a TNA or ROH guy, and you aren’t used by either company for whatever reason (this is the reason Jerry Lynn left TNA) for a month (four TNA Impact! tapings) then you skip out on a month’s pay. Oh, and TNA has a weird policy on if a wrestler of theirs gets injured and needs surgery then TNA will pay for it but the wrestler would have to pay it back. Reason why Konnan and Ron Killings left last year (but Killings came back, but he left again). I don’t think medical insurance works like that, but there you go. Oh, I should mention I am a big TNA and ROH fan, but not WWE (but my big hankering is of course New japan, NOAH, etc. other Japanese feds). Oh, and the pay scale of wrestlers in TNA is shitty.

He’s not trying to fight yet, he’s “injured.”

The questions in this case are going to be entirely limited to Couture’s name and face being associated with the IFL when they’re contractually restricted to use promoting the UFC.

There’s other stuff, but it’s all background noise that won’t be included in the decision.

UFC is going to win this case walking away.

Or, it’s too early for my brain to be working.

Actually, he handles himself very well in public appearances. It’s the small-exposure media that gets the full Dana, and even that isn’t so bad. Granted, the malcontent hardcore fans get riled up over comments like “Fedor is a farce” and “Nobody cares about Josh Barnett” but the rest of the public doesn’t care. Anytime I see him on ESPN, or getting interviewed on CBS, Dennis Miller, etc, he comes off very well.

And by Zuffa’s own admission in the lawsuit, he does have the right to resign from his employment contract and then work elsewhere following a one-year period from the date of his resignation, so that would only tie him up contractually through October 2008, which is the date that Couture has been publicly citing all along as the date when he believes he’ll be contractually free and clear from the UFC. According to the detailed article by Adam Swift, there is nothing in the lawsuit talking about the promotional contract (ie, the fighting contract) at all, which would mean that there’s nothing in the lawsuit disputing that October 2008 timeframe.

What is in the lawsuit, however, is Zuffa’s attempt to get an injunction that would serve as a temporary restraining order to prevent Couture from “competing with the UFC” during that time period, and that would include fighting for any other organization. We’ve known for months that Zuffa’s legal position is that they’re going to do everything in their power to prevent him from ever fighting for another organization, so ultimately what they want here is a temporary injunction leading to a more long-term injunction.

By only focusing on the commentating contract and not the fighting contract in this initial lawsuit, what they’ve done is basically make a strategic decision to try to attain their end-goal here (which is an injunction preventing Couture from fighting anywhere else), without having to actually claim or prove a breach of contract on his actual fighting contract. If a judge agrees with the case that they’ve laid out, they could theoretically get an injunction that prevents Couture from fighting without ever even directly challenging his right to fight elsewhere after a certain date.

The reason this is vitally important is because it gives them the chance to potentially get what they’re ultimately seeking (an injunction that prevents Couture from fighting elsewhere) without having the legally questionable aspects of their fighting contracts potentially thrown out of court. (In particular, the de-facto no-compete-clause-for-life would likely never hold up in any court, and the so-called champion’s clause would be unlikely to hold up in court very well, either, since it didn’t hold up very well in the BJ Penn lawsuit.)

If they had sued Couture directly on the basis of a claimed breach of contract on his promotional/fighting contract, then they’d be seeking what they ultimately want, but they’d be doing so at the risk of getting some of their key contractual clauses thrown out of court and declared invalid, which would affect a lot of other UFC contracts.

By only suing on the basis of the employment/commentating contract for now, they’re still seeking the injunction that they ultimately want, but without the risk of having to put the aforementioned contractual clauses under legal scrutiny.

I would expect that when or if anything goes poorly for Zuffa’s side in this legal case, or it looks like there’s a good chance they’re not going to be getting the injunction that they’re seeking via this particular lawsuit, then at that point you can expect another lawsuit to be filed with the full gamut of legal claims about Couture’s actual fighting contract. What has happened up to this point has essentially just been a gamble to see if they can get that injunction without having to subject all of their fighter contractual clauses to legal scrutiny.

How do TNA and ROH contracts compare to WWE contracts? I haven’t followed pro wrestling in the past few years so I can’t say I know much about their contracts. What I do know is that WWE wrestlers are basically treated like circus animals.

Actually, this case might be too ripe (yes, it’s a legal term. Means too early. Opposite of mootness, which is too late and “a moot point”.) because Couture didn’t fight outside of anything Zuffa related, nor did he appear on IFL or anything like that.

And I have to agree that these UFC contracts are too one-sided. They are probably worse than TNA wrestling and Ring Of Honor wrestling contracts. And people wonder why there will never be unions and possibly pension plans in the fight and wrestling industry… Let’s hope the GPWA in Japan gets in full force.