Leslie Smith launches Project Spearhead, a fighter-driven effort to get UFC athletes unionized

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FrankieNYC

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The UFC women’s bantamweight fighter has started Project Spearhead, an effort to get UFC athletes to unionize, she confirmed with MMA Fighting on Monday. Unlike past labor movement failures, Smith vows that this attempt for organization will be driven mainly by fighters. She will start out as the interim president of Project Spearhead and Kajan Johnson, a UFC lightweight, is the interim vice president.

“This is kind of just another in a long string of efforts, but I think a lot of things separate it from the other ones,” Smith told MMA Fighting. “One of them being that this has no outside influences. This is for the fighters, it was come up with by me — a fighter.”

The website for Project Spearhead launched Friday. On it is a step-by-step explanation of the unionization process and a link to download authorization cards, which would ignite said process if signed by enough athletes. The site says that the UFC is “misclassifying” fighters as independent contractors, when they are really treated like employees. As it is now, UFC fighters would not be able to be in a union, because they are independent contractors, per U.S. labor law.

“Project Spearhead is here to force the issue - the UFC can choose to either pay into our needs and respect us as employees with a say in all decisions affecting us or treat us like the independent contractors that we are being called and lighten up with the USADA supervision, uniforms and restrictions,” the site reads.

Leslie Smith launches Project Spearhead, a fighter-driven effort to get UFC athletes unionized


A few years ago, Jeff Boras invited any UFC fighter to a meeting about forming a union & only Leslie showed
 
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jason73

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Maybe they can force them to release the real ppv numbers
 

ErikMagraken

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This is a good move.

Every UFC fighter should sign this card and return it to Lucas.

In the simplest terms Project Spearhead is looking to give fighters legal clarity about whether they are employees or independent contractors. Once fighters have this information they can collectively look to improve their contracts with the UFC. Its a no brainer.
 

FrankieNYC

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Correct. Now that it's WME the books are definitely the most open they've been in regards to financial data.
There are so many owners now, it makes it easier to get actual internal info.
Up until WME sale, the only thing we got was 2015 creditor filings from Meltzer.
In that he reported UFC paid 13% of rev to fighters.
Now with investor docs, good reporters find the info.

But top bring it back to his PPV query, the fighters that were paid on PPV points, always received the tally & Meltzer's numbers were either spot on or close.
Remember he had the MayMac numbers 6 weeks before SHO's final ;)
 

Wild

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What happened to the Jeff Borris led PFA? To me, that seemed like it had the best chance of actually becoming a reality at the time.
 

FrankieNYC

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What happened to the Jeff Borris led PFA? To me, that seemed like it had the best chance of actually becoming a reality at the time.

The Boras led union had the best shot, because as an agent he knows contracts as good as WME does.
But the fighters did not support it.
He called a meeting in Vegas to explain to UFC fighters, his vision & ...........
ONLY LESLIE SHOWED
They are their worst enemy in this.

Leslie has been both knowledgeable & in the forefront.
She is also not on a UFC witch-hunt like others seemed to be & still in good graces with Dana.

She is admitting she is getting the ball rolling & then will turn it to a real union leader

Let's see how it plays
 

Wild

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The Boras led union had the best shot, because as an agent he knows contracts as good as WME does.
But the fighters did not support it.
He called a meeting in Vegas to explain to UFC fighters, his vision & ...........
ONLY LESLIE SHOWED
They are their worst enemy in this.

Leslie has been both knowledgeable & in the forefront.
She is also not on a UFC witch-hunt like others seemed to be & still in good graces with Dana.

She is admitting she is getting the ball rolling & then will turn it to a real union leader

Let's see how it plays
It was unbelievable to me at that time that only Leslie and Mitrione showed up for that presser. The UFC has put some serious fear into fighters.
 

Mad Dog

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“Project Spearhead is here to force the issue - the UFC can choose to either pay into our needs and respect us as employees with a say in all decisions affecting us or treat us like the independent contractors that we are being called and lighten up with the USADA supervision, uniforms and restrictions,” the site reads.


I like it. The UFC does try to have their cake and eat it also with some of these issues. It's time that fighters had more of a say in things. Especially more of the money.

Hopefully this takes off and fighters get on board. Otherwise don't whine any more if you get mistreated by the UFC.
 

FrankieNYC

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It was unbelievable to me at that time that only Leslie and Mitrione showed up for that presser. The UFC has put some serious fear into fighters.
Sadly UFC didn't
Fighters just dont care as much as they make fans believe

A great point was Kos going on & on & on to Helwani about fighters & how they need to start a union, etc.
Helwani asked if he did anything to try to make it occur & Kos said 'no"
 

benjo0101

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It was unbelievable to me at that time that only Leslie and Mitrione showed up for that presser. The UFC has put some serious fear into fighters.
I agree. The guy did seem like all the others though, in for the money and no real interest in the sport.
 

FrankieNYC

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No fear at all in this broad.
She handles it the right way. She been upfront with Dana & UFC & never had a hidden agenda & due to that has stayed in good graces.
Some others went on the attack & failed because they had an agenda that turned off other fighters.
So far she seems interested in "discussion" to better things for fighters.
 

Sheepdog

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She handles it the right way. She been upfront with Dana & UFC & never had a hidden agenda & due to that has stayed in good graces.
Some others went on the attack & failed because they had an agenda that turned off other fighters.
So far she seems interested in "discussion" to better things for fighters.
The only way that she will stay in their 'good graces' is if she achieves nothing.
 

ender852

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Didn't the ufc pay for her stomach tumor surgery even though they didn't have to? Nice payback
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Didn't the ufc pay for her stomach tumor surgery even though they didn't have to? Nice payback

Bro, there needs to be an across the board standard. They can't pick and choose, this person's surgery or when they helped out Rampage. You just can't do that. That's preferential treatment and they need this move that Leslie Smith is doing.

UFC, ie WME are bastards, they need to be held accountable.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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I also hate the bs backroom bonus. People need to open up their eyes, they do backroom bonuses and every now and again will pay for a surgery, its all a sham to avoid having set benefits for fighters.

This is the same company that gives Travis Browne 100K to show, yet would not offer Gegard a penny raise from his 80K 40 win bonus after he finished his contract on a 5 fight win streak ,with 4 finishes by strikes.

I support Leslie here, all fans should
 

FrankieNYC

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I also hate the bs backroom bonus. People need to open up their eyes, they do backroom bonuses and every now and again will pay for a surgery, its all a sham to avoid having set benefits for fighters.

This is the same company that gives Travis Browne 100K to show, yet would not offer Gegard a penny raise from his 80K 40 win bonus after he finished his contract on a 5 fight win streak ,with 4 finishes by strikes.

I support Leslie here, all fans should
They are the only MMA org to offer injury insurance to over 500 fighters
I support what Smith is doing, but UFC is not making fighters sell tickets & paying them less than $1k &to be on a card like Bellator does.
I hope whatever Smith does gets attached to Bellator as well, because how they treat prelim fighters is almost criminal in context.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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FrankieNYC @FrankieNYC

Keep something in mind, I agree with your sentiment. But Bellator prelim fighters are like guys with almost no fights , these guys would not even make the main card on LFA or Titan or whatever. The UFC prelim fighters are actually established fighters.

Huge difference between paying some local guy 1k to show who has literally a record of 2 and 1 with no name fights, versus the UFC taking top talent like a Curtis Blades and paying him 10K intro on prelims.
 

FrankieNYC

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FrankieNYC @FrankieNYC

Keep something in mind, I agree with your sentiment. But Bellator prelim fighters are like guys with almost no fights , these guys would not even make the main card on LFA or Titan or whatever. The UFC prelim fighters are actually established fighters.

Huge difference between paying some local guy 1k to show who has literally a record of 2 and 1 with no name fights, versus the UFC taking top talent like a Curtis Blades and paying him 10K intro on prelims.
A TV company as big as Viacom should not make fighters sell tickets (so Coker can pad his gate numbers) & pay them crap.
The reason Bellator has 17-18 fights (sometimes AFTER the main) is so locals can sell tickets for the right to be on a card
That is treating the fighters like shit
They are a major company & not some local indy at a rec hall.
Coker is infamous for treating name fighters great & pre-lim fighters like crap.
A fighter posted his Bellator offer for an upcoming fight & it was $250 & he had to sell X-amount of tickets by a certain date or he would not be allowed to fight & get the $250 for the opportunity to fight 5 hrs before the main event.
He made more fighting in front of a 100 people at an indy
 

SensoriaUtopia

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A TV company as big as Viacom should not make fighters sell tickets (so Coker can pad his gate numbers) & pay them crap.
The reason Bellator has 17-18 fights (sometimes AFTER the main) is so locals can sell tickets for the right to be on a card
That is treating the fighters like shit
They are a major company & not some local indy at a rec hall.
Coker is infamous for treating name fighters great & pre-lim fighters like crap.
A fighter posted his Bellator offer for an upcoming fight & it was $250 & he had to sell X-amount of tickets by a certain date or he would not be allowed to fight & get the $250 for the opportunity to fight 5 hrs before the main event.
He made more fighting in front of a 100 people at an indy

I would love to see those guys paid better, but again, the Bellator prelim fighters are guys that would not even make it to Bellator normally or UFC or OneFC. These are low level local fighters, that would only be fighting on the local circuit.

THe UFC entry fighters are usually higher pedigree

Not excusing Bellator, just pointing out its a different scenario.
 

dacofty

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It was unbelievable to me at that time that only Leslie and Mitrione showed up for that presser. The UFC has put some serious fear into fighters.
Heres what should happen, they should concentrate on the other MMA organizations and their fighters. Start making waves in those organizations and its only a matter of time before the fear infested fighters seek the light. Everyone knows the UFC is finding things and will protect things at all cost. Chip away at the legs and eventually it will fall.