A Fighting Chance

When the check arrived, Carlos “The Ronin” Newton was at home in Newmarket, Ontario. It was 2012, two years after his last catchweight bout in Impact Fighting Championship, Newton having worked in property development since putting down his gloves. Earlier that year, THQ had released a mixed martial arts video game featuring fighters from the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships (PRIDE); because his likeness was used, Zuffa, the parent company of both promotions, issued him a royalty payment of $500. The amount, Newton said, was less than what he made in a week in his teens as a lifeguard: a negligible, three-figure sum for a company whose subsidiary had seen an estimated revenue of $360 million in 2011. He ripped up the check and made a phone call to his friend, former UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletich—whom he’d actually beaten for the title in 2001—to vent his frustrations, at one point mentioning his interest in pursuing legal action against the promotion. Miletich in turn put him in contact with several lawyers, including Arizona lawyer Rob Maysey.

Founder of the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association (MMAFA), Maysey was eager to assist. Once a massive MMA fan mesmerized by the UFC, he was one of the organization’s biggest critics, believing the ownership to be exploitative of its fighters. Casino owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta’s company Zuffa had purchased the fight promotion in 2001. The brothers parlayed their connections into unprecedented success for the struggling company. With Lorenzo, a former member of the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), for instance, the UFC was finally able to run cards in the Silver State despite years of resistance to the sport, thought to be excessively brutal. Zuffa took as economic inspiration not boxing, MMA’s most obvious antecedent, but the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment). As Michael Thomsen writes in Cage Kings, a book about the history of the UFC, the WWF’s contracts with wrestlers “were notoriously restrictive, making performers exclusive to the promotion despite treating them as ‘work for hire,’ or independent contractors without health benefits or any of the federal protections given to full-time employees.”

Maysey traced his disillusion to 2003, when he watched Gerald Strebendt, a professional fighter and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training partner of Maysey’s, lose his UFC debut in the lightweight division. Maysey recalls seeing Strebendt come out to the crowd afterwards: “He’s asking to borrow money to get home.” The lawyer immediately began doing the math: “You know, there’s fifteen thousand people here. The concession line is twenty deep for three hours straight. [The UFC] is selling pay-per views. I just started asking questions.” He would learn that Strebendt’s fight purse was two-and-two: $2,000 to fight and $2,000 to win, the second half of which he didn’t collect after suffering a first-round knockout. That left Strebendt with only $2,000 to allocate toward his management team and his coaches (5-20 percent each) and, because he’s categorized as an independent contractor, federal and state income taxes. Athletes also had to pay for their medical exams to fight, a list that included a dilated ophthalmologic examination, a complete blood panel, and two different brain scans, as required by state athletic commissions.

“You guys are literally paying to fight,” Maysey said, his voice incredulous after two-plus decades attempting to address the UFC’s predatory business practices. Amid another lucrative year for the promotion, with perhaps the most attention it has ever received since its inception—owing, for the most part, to its comfortable relationship with the president, with UFC commentator Joe Rogan’s endorsement of Donald Trump on his podcast; the multiple cageside appearances made by Trump and his cabinet members post-election; and an upcoming White House UFC event in June to celebrate Trump’s birthday—many fighters on the promotion’s roster continue to struggle financially. Back in 2003, Maysey’s avenues were few: a union was impossible as long as the UFC classified fighters as independent contractors, the promotion unwilling to accept liability for its fighters’ injuries. Maysey would instead found the MMAFA in 2006, hoping to provide publicity and merchandising services as well as lobbying and litigation assistance.  

The MMAFA’s UFC debut would be a red, all-caps logo on the seat of Sean Sherk’s shorts for his welterweight bout against Nick Diaz that April at UFC 59. What followed, however, was a fruitless endeavor in trying to convince fighters, agents, managers, and gyms of the MMAFA’s utility. Not one to be easily discouraged, Maysey continued to lobby on his own dime, at one point taking out a second mortgage on his house.

Newton followed up his phone call with a trip to Arizona. The former fighter reviewed cases with Maysey at the latter’s law firm for several days, until the two came to a decision: independent contractors were only truly independent if they had the freedom to pursue employment elsewhere. The UFC, however, through force and cunning, had become a monopoly; as one does in such situations, Maysey, with Newton’s support, would work to file an antitrust lawsuit against the promotion. Spanning nearly a decade from the first filing to the final settlement approval, the lawsuit would challenge the rebellious, maverick image the UFC has fashioned for itself, naming it for what it is: a billion-dollar corporation that has gone unchecked for too long.

The most basic definition of a monopoly is achieved when there is a single (or dominant) seller of a product, while a monopsony occurs when there is a single (or dormant) buyer of goods. (Note: “product” and “goods” are not interchangeable; in the suit, fight bouts are the “product” being sold by the UFC to consumers, while fighters’ services—as in, their abilities and skills to fight—are the “goods” being purchased by the UFC.) Either situation is considered by the Federal Trade Commission as anticompetitive conduct, as outlined by the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the federal law that prohibits just that to encourage competition in a free and open market. In other words, illegal.

Over the course of two years, Maysey would write a 115-page, exhibit-laden brief explaining how Zuffa had “systematically and intentionally crippled the free-market system” of MMA through monopolization and attempted monopolization. Filed in 2014 by Berger Montague, a firm specializing in plaintiff-side class action work, the set of complaints that would eventually become Le v. Zuffa alleges that the UFC achieved both monopolistic and monopsonistic power through practices such as prohibiting its fighters—despite their contractor status—from fighting for other promotions and refusing to conduct business with venues or sponsors involved with the promotion’s competitors. In some cases, the UFC went so far as to purchase its competitors, as seen with its acquisition of PRIDE in 2007, which coincided with the Japanese promotion’s closure that same year. When signing new fighters (or re-signing current fighters), the UFC then became inflexible with the contracts that it offered, if not unapologetically punitive. In 2008, immediately after releasing former welterweight contender Jon Fitch for refusing to sign over his name and likeness in a lifetime agreement with the UFC for no compensation, president Dana White said in an interview with Yahoo! Sports, “We’re looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us.” And if you’re part of the latter? “(Expletive) them. All of them, every last (expletive) one of them.” Without other options for elite competition, fighters were forced to acquiesce to punishing terms to remain on good terms with an organization that controls most of the MMA market.

These contracts included exclusive promotional agreements that granted Zuffa the sole rights to secure, promote, arrange, and present “any and all mixed martial arts contests” the fighter-contractor is part of during their contractual term, as well as a right-to-match clause that required a fighter—even one voluntarily released by the UFC—to allow the UFC to match financial terms when entering an agreement. Other clauses prohibited fighters from entering their own sponsorship deals without receiving prior approval from the UFC and required sponsors, some of which were smaller brands, to pay licensing fees. Should a fighter dare to fight back, the UFC would “ice” them, the plaintiffs argued, extending contract and fight negotiations for months if not a year at a time, during which the fighter, bound to exclusivity rights with a promotion that has essentially benched them, was without income and losing marketability through inactivity.

Fitch described the effectiveness and frequency with which the UFC employed this strategy: “Money’s running low, I need money, I need to fight. . . . They’re holding my bout agreement hostage. They’re holding my next fight hostage until I sign this. They do that often.” On the off chance that the fighter was granted the opportunity to fight during the renegotiation period, plaintiffs Brandon Vera and Kyle Kingsbury said, the fight would be on a “dark show” (most likely an undercard) or against a stronger, but lesser known, opponent, both of which would risk the fighter’s health and have an adverse effect on the fighter’s pay, reputation, and marketability.

Having successfully monopsonized the market for professional MMA fighter services, and with its roster constantly full of emerging fighters eager to prove themselves to the matchmakers, the UFC has suffered no negative impacts to its revenue. And because the UFC has also monopolized the market for professional MMA bouts, it has gotten away with charging its viewers higher and higher pay-per-view fees—which increased during its five-year partnership with ESPN from $59.99 to $79.99—to watch fighters win purses as low as $12,000 each.

Le v. Zuffa started out as five back-to-back legal complaints that were filed against Zuffa between December 2014 and March 2015. The documents, which sought treble damages and injunctive relief due to the UFC’s monopoly and monopsony power, also introduced two classes—the Bout Class and the Identity Class—which covered fighters who participated in UFC-promoted bouts and whose likenesses were used in UFC promotional materials, respectively. Fitch, Vera, Kingsbury were some of the named plaintiffs for both Bout and Identity Classes, while Nate Quarry, whose last fight in the UFC was outside the statute of limitations for the Bout Class, was a named plaintiff in the Identity Class.

An antitrust lawsuit can last for years, entailing a lengthy, expensive, and grueling ordeal involving thousands upon thousands of hours spent meeting with the clients, selecting the subject-matter experts, and navigating the opponent’s attempts at dismissal every step of the way. The odds are already stacked against the plaintiffs, who are going against powerful companies with unparalleled access to the country’s best lawyers. Accordingly, the UFC made numerous attempts to undermine the plaintiffs. In the months following the filings, Zuffa’s legal counsel submitted a consolidated motion to transfer venue—along with another motion to expedite it—from California (where they were filed) to Nevada (where the UFC is based), despite having already agreed with the plaintiffs on a hearing date; a consolidated motion to dismiss the complaints altogether; and a motion to stay discovery, or the exchange of information between the defendants and the plaintiffs, pending the result of their previous motion to dismiss. The motion to transfer was granted in June 2015, reassigning the case to Judge Richard F. Boulware II and Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen.

After Judge Leen denied their motion to stay discovery, the defense, in a proposed confidentiality order meant to protect exchanged information, then suggested a two-tier designation system that would exclude Maysey, now part of the plaintiffs’ legal counsel, from accessing certain material due to his role as the founder of the MMAFA. (In a status conference, Judge Leen would determine that the defense did not meet the burden of establishing the need for such a system.) In a September 2015 hearing, Judge Boulware denied the defendants’ consolidated motion to dismiss the complaints. Such motions and responses to the motions, along with petitions, status reports, and stipulations—like joint deadline extension requests, for example, to ensure that each side had ample time to respond to one another’s motions—had to be reviewed and decided upon by the court, oftentimes in scheduled conferences and hearings, making for a lengthy, yearslong process.

The outbreak of Covid-19 and a Ninth Circuit appeal on class certification standards later created obstacles for the suit, pushing back class certification for Le v. Zuffa from 2020 to 2023. (Judge Boulware would ultimately deny class certification to the Identity Class in August 2023, citing the plaintiffs’ failure to prove common impact or injury that can be traced to anticompetitive conduct; the identity value—or notoriety—of each fighter, for example, was decided upon by Zuffa’s subjective interpretation, making it difficult to demonstrate injury to the class as a whole.) The delay, in turn, complicated the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief, a court order that would bar Zuffa from continuing anticompetitive conduct, eliminating and/or paring back exclusionary clauses in fighter contracts (such as the right-to-match clause), as it necessitated proof of current marketing conditions. By 2023, the lawsuit would be six years removed from the conclusion of the discovery phase, and to reopen discovery to show how Zuffa’s operations affected present MMA market conditions would put the entire suit, now nine years in the making, at risk of a dismissal. Instead, in 2021, as they awaited the results of the class certification case, the legal team made the decision to close the class period for Le v. Zuffa on June 30, 2017. Then, they filed a second, similar lawsuit, Johnson v. Zuffa, that would cover a class period from July 1, 2017 through the present and that would include the injunctive relief removed from the first lawsuit.

Throughout the life of Le v. Zuffa, the UFC changed hands once more: in 2016, following UFC 200, the Fertitta brothers sold the UFC to WME-IMG, co-owned by Ari Emanuel, which eventually acquired 100 percent control of the promotion in 2021 under the new name Endeavor. Then, in 2023, Endeavor purchased a 51-percent controlling interest of WWE and merged it with UFC to create TKO Group. In February 2024, when a trial was still on the horizon for the first lawsuit, both parties engaged in private mediation; that July, the defendants offered to settle $335 million for both Le v. Zuffa and Johnson v. Zuffa, which Judge Boulware denied.

He granted preliminary approval for an increased $375 million settlement for only Le v. Zuffa in October 2024, supported by declarations from nearly 160 fighters who were in favor of a settlement over a trial and, in February 2025, he granted his final approval, making way for former fighters to submit their claims. Here, two things can be true: $375 million is a life-changing sum and a drop in the UFC’s billion-dollar bucket. In its first quarter results for 2025 alone, the fight promotion reported a total revenue of $359.7 million; that same year, the UFC would make it on Time’s “100 Most Influential Companies” list as a “global sports force,” noting its record-breaking ticket sales—$22 million—in the previous year for UFC 306 at the Las Vegas Sphere.

The aftermath of the Le v. Zuffa settlement saw, according to co-lead counsel Berger Montague, an unprecedented claims rate from the class members (97 percent) with an average distribution of approximately $250,000. Although the payments will vary depending on the compensation received for participating in UFC bouts and the number of UFC bouts they fought during the class period, the court-approved plan of allocation stated that each claimant would have a minimum recovery amount of $15,000.

To most of the class members, the settlement represents a financial buoy; to others, the sum doesn’t even come close to what they sacrificed—and have continued to sacrifice—to be in the UFC. To the named plaintiffs and the lawyers involved in the first antitrust class action lawsuit against the largest fight promotion company in the world, it represents vindication, each new discovery breaking open the long-held secrets of the Zuffa era for all the world to see, over ten years’ worth of work marked by legal obstacles and naysayers—who ranged from executives to fighters to fans, all of them portraying the lawsuit as nothing but a vendetta brought on by has-beens—achieving a first step towards change in the MMA industry. Lawyers could set their sights back on Johnson v. Zuffa, as well as the two new antitrust class action lawsuits they filed last year against the now WME Group-owned Zuffa, TKO Group, and Endeavor Group: Cirkunovs v. Zuffa., for current and former UFC fighters with contracts that contained arbitration clauses and/or class-action waivers; and Davis v. Zuffa., for fighters arguing the UFC’s monopolistic and monopsonistic power led to the closure of the smaller fight promotions they were in contract with, leaving them with no other choice but to enter restrictive contracts with the UFC for less pay and less frequency. 

Although the fight promotion has celebrated record-breaking revenues year after year—$1.14 billion in 2022, $1.3 billion in 2023, and $1.4 billion in 2024, with revenue shares paid to fighters remaining at or under 20 percent—MMA as a whole has seen a gradual decline in professional events, in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic and in part due to the UFC’s market dominance. (The math is simple for that one: with fewer promotions come fewer events, regardless of how many fights are squeezed into a fight card.) According to combat sports journalist John S. Nash, the record low number of fights in 2020 rose in 2021, rebounding through 2023 before seeing another downturn in 2024.

To viewers, the quality of fights has also declined, perhaps also as a result of the UFC’s market dominance: if the promotion exerts control not only over the sport’s talent pool but also its ranking system, and its handpicked matchmakers are the main decision-makers on whether someone has met their arbitrary prerequisites to challenge for a championship title, then there’s no real incentive for the fighters—who don’t know where they stand or what they need to do to advance and who are aware of the fact that getting released will likely result in the end of their careers in MMA—to risk a medical suspension, or months without pay, by attempting a creative KO or a submission. Survival, then, can look like a win by decision. In 2025, the UFC’s fight outcomes were nearly even, with combined finishes (277 TKOs, KOs, and submissions) only slightly leading total decisions (271). It’s a far cry from the fight outcomes from ten, twenty, or even thirty years before, where the combined finishes consistently outnumbered total decisions by as much as a two-digit difference.

Last year, the UFC entered a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount that went into effect this year, with the network winning streaming rights to marquee events and fight nights. Gone is the pay-per-view model—fights will now be available to Paramount+ subscribers at no additional cost—bringing up new points of discussion: How will this deal affect fighter pay, if at all, and what will happen to the UFC fighters whose contracts included compensation from pay-per-view buys? Without that added incentive, it’s probable that the cycle of monotonous and repetitive fights will continue, further affecting the fan base. To Maysey, it’s probable, too, that the fighters who will be affected by the discontinuation of pay-per-view events would have a valid claim to either leave the fight promotion or negotiate better terms for a new contract. Unsurprisingly, the streaming service has already increased its subscription prices ahead of its first numbered event, UFC 324.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a growing trend: the best people are leaving—or trying to leave—MMA for boxing, which has a wage share of 60-70 percent. They dream of becoming the next Conor McGregor, who became the UFC’s first two-division champion and one of its highest earning fighters: he leveraged his position as one of the promotion’s superstars to set up his first professional boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, securing him a $30 million minimum purse—far more than any UFC bout would bring. (The UFC and Mayweather Promotions were co-promoters for the match, which earned a total revenue of over $600 million.) After leaving the UFC in 2023, former heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou negotiated a contract with MMA promotion Professional Fighters League (PFL) that allowed him to compete in boxing; that same year, he fought then-WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, in a fight that earned him $10 million. Recently, former UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria has spoken about pursuing a boxing career, as have UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and current UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.

The people in charge of the UFC are aware of the payday that boxing can bring. In partnership with Saudi Arabia-owned Sela Sport, TKO Group created Zuffa Boxing, a professional boxing promotion that is now in the process of changing the landscape of that sport in the United States. Ahead of its inaugural event in September, Republican Representative Brian Jack and Democratic Representative Sharice Davids introduced the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act in Congress, in which proposed Unified Boxing Organizations (UBOs) that would serve as alternatives for current sanctioning organizations would be free to implement their own ranking and title systems and to offer support services to boxers—training and rehabilitation equipment and facilities, health insurance policies, and medical coordinators—that would otherwise be costly to other fight promotions. These UBOs threaten the protections made for boxers under the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 (colloquially known as the Ali Act) which prevents such anticompetitive practices. It should be noted that in 2016 and 2017, then-Representative Markwayne Mullin had hoped to expand the protections in the Ali Act to MMA fighters by introducing the Muhammad Ali Expansion Act, which Maysey had also worked on.

Though it would die on the floor both years as a result of the UFC’s lobbying, the Expansion Act would also gain substantial traction among former fighters like Randy Couture, the plaintiffs of Le v. Zuffa and Johnson v. Zuffa, and the members of the MMAFA, as well as the support of the promotion Bellator, which, as of January 2025, has gone defunct. Now, the same combat sports advocates are doing all they can to prevent the passage of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act. During the 37th Annual Conference of the Association of Boxing Commissions, Nate Quarry and Kajan Johnson did a presentation on the UFC’s market dominance, citing the considerable difference between boxers’ and MMA fighters’ purses to explain what the Revival Act could do to boxing; in particular, they cited McGregor’s earnings from his match against Mayweather. “Why would so many MMA fighters want to go and box . . . when boxers never want to cross that line and come into MMA?” Johnson asked the audience. “What could be the motivation there?”