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Report: Stefan Leko out 7 months due to knee injury
By Zach Arnold | January 16, 2008
Pro Fight Store is reporting that Stefan Leko will be out of action for 7 months due to knee surgery. Leko fought this past weekend.
Mauro Ranallo and Don King interview each other. Heaven help us all.
Frank Trigg was the color commentator for yet another Fox Sports Net Best Damn Toughman presentation on Monday night. The show was taped at the Hard Rock in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Rich Bergeron has filed a motion to dismiss in the civil lawsuit filed against him by Xyience. The next court hearing is on 2/14 at 9 AM.
Other headlines:
- Dave Meltzer (Yahoo Sports): Anatomy of a promotional fiasco (talking about the WCO situation)
- Press Release: Directed Electronics becomes exclusive mobile audio partner with UFC
- Monsters and Critics: National Geographic’s Fight Science is can’t-miss TV
- The Canadian Press: Colin Robinson from Northern Ireland relishes second chance to ‘do the business’
- 15 Rounds: Mac Danzig Q & A
- The Sacramento Bee: ‘California Kid’ Urijah Faber stands tall
- The Canadian Press: The patient Punisher (Jason Lambert) looks forward to finally fighting again at UFC 80
- The Victoria Times Colonist (Canada): Victoria MMA card dealt knockout blow
- The Oregonian: Wrestling poised to feed off MMA
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, WEC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I posted this last night but it was stuck in \”awaiting moderation\” limbo for most of the night.
It’s interesting to note, as MMAPayout’s Adam Swift has, that Zuffa’s lawsuit against Couture only mentions his employment contract with Zuffa (ie, commentating duties), not his promotional contract (ie, fighting). Even though all of Zuffa’s public statements up to this point have been all about the fighting contract, the lawsuit itself doesn’t allege that he breached his fighting contract, it only alleges that he breached his employment/commentating contract.
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.
Stefan Leko is the headline today? Must be a REALLY slow news day…
Leko must have been one of PRIDE’s biggest busts. He was truly an inspiration to Bo Cantrells everywhere.
Grape Knee High, you are obviously one of those who are familiar only with his PRIDE “career”.
mmafan, I know he has had a successful K-1 career. But Zach rarely reports on K-1 kickboxing news or events — much less injuries.
it’s not letting me post comments, perhaps there is a filter for indecency. 🙂