With the upper crust of two of its divisions looking quite amorphous and a highly anticipated title fight tanking at the last excruciating moment, the UFC looks a bit like a vessel trying to traverse spuming waters. Amidst the disorder comes another dark horse that might prove a knight in shining armour, at least in the fighters’ eyes.
According to sherdog.com, a bevy of UFC luminaries including former champions Georges St. Pierre, T.J. Dillashaw, Cain Velasquez and top ten fighters Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and Tim Kennedy, along with former Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney have proclaimed to the MMA world that an “industry-redefining announcement” is due this week.
The moment of truth will dawn this Wednesday, via conference call, at 4 pm ET/1 pm PT or 02:30 am IST. A press release from public relations firm, O’Malley Hansen Communications was published this Monday apprising the media about it.
There is frenzied speculation that this might be the announcement to mark the formation of the much-discussed fighters’ union, considering that Cerrone, Kennedy and St. Pierre, almost in that precise order, are ardent about it.
GSP, Dillashaw, Velasquez and Kennedy are represented by talent management firm Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the foremost rival of the UFC’s new parent company, WME-IMG, while Cerrone’s agent is KHI Management, founded by Nascar driver Kevin Harwick. In the video below, Cerrone talks about his stance on the fighters union:
Since being ousted as CEO of Bellator in June 2014 and replaced by Strikeforce head Scott Coker, this is the first major report regarding Bjorn Rebney’s involvement in anything MMA-related. The accounts are well-travelled of him meeting with prospective investors sixty-two times before finally securing financial backing.
Renowned Major League Baseball agent and professional poker player, Jeff Borris, in August this year, made what might be construed as the first step in this process when he held a press conference and enumerated some priorities of the PFA (Professional Fighters Union) like fighters’ pension, full-scale health insurance, a grievance process and fighter input in anti-doping policy.
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