The legal battle between the Bellator Fighting Championships and the Ultimate Fighting Championship has taken an unexpected turn.
While Zuffa, LLC – the parent company of the UFC – recently filed suit in Nevada against Bellator due to an alleged theft of "trade secrets and confidential Zuffa documents," Bellator officials have now fired back with a suit of their own.
MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com) has learned that Bellator Sport Worldwide, LLC today filed suit against Zuffa in a New Jersey court and alleges that "The Ultimate Fighter 12" cast member Jonathan Brookins (11-3 MMA, 1-0 BFC) joined the Spike TV reality series while still under an exclusive contract for Bellator.
Brookins and his manager Mickey Dubberley were also named as defendants in the suit.
A WEC veteran, Brookins is perhaps best known for a November 2008 loss to Jose Aldo, the current WEC featherweight champion. According to the suit, Brookins signed an "exclusive promotional contract" with Bellator in March 2009.
Brookins debuted with Bellator in April 2009 with a submission win over Stephen Ledbetter in a non-tournament affair. Brookins followed up those fights with a pair of wins under the G-Force Fights banner. Bellator's suit contends they signed off on each of the two fights outside of their promotion.
However, Bellator contends when it came to an appearance on "The Ultimate Fighter," Brookins did not seek permission. In fact, the complaint states that Brookins manager actually lied to Bellator about his client's status.
"We've been offering the fighter fights, and hindsight being 20-20, we were lied to by his management saying he was injured and couldn't accept fights," Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney today told MMAjunkie.com. "We find out afterward he was filming and fighting on 'The Ultimate Fighter' – that he made the show and was in the house."
While the new suit would seem either completely unrelated to – or perhaps in retaliation to – Zuffa's recent filing, Rebney has a different idea.
"It was odd to us, and struck me as odd, that what happened last week happened with the UFC," Rebney said. "It was a disconnect for me. I didn't understand it. The UFC admitted freely it had never viewed the alleged proprietary documents. I assumed there was something under it. The moment we were made aware that he was on 'The Ultimate Fighter' and had made it in the house and had been taped on the show and had been sequestered for a number of months, our attorneys starting calling immediately. He's called a number of times to the UFC legal team and has gotten no response – not one returned phone call. The whole situation struck me very, very odd.
"It's one thing to have documents in your hand to be able to point to and say, 'This is our document. This is proprietary.' But to not have anything in hand and to take the actions that were taken, for lack of a better term, it seemed like a pre-emptive strike."
Dubberley, who was not aware of the suit when contacted by MMAjunkie.com, contends Brookins did nothing wrong and had been verbally released from his deal by Bellator matchmaker Sam Caplan.
Rebney strongly disagrees.
"That is a complete and total fabrication that couldn't be further from the truth," Rebney said. "Sam has been repeatedly trying to get Jonathan to accept fights. We've been told he was injured. We were lied to.
"We wouldn't release Jonathan. We count ourselves fortunate to have signed him. ... At Bellator, we function as a professional organization. If and when we release fighters, we do so on paper. We don't do so verbally. We follow a pretty standard form of practice in this industry. That is a ridiculous comment at it's most basic level."
Bellator's suit requests exemplary damages on the counts of tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, breach of contract (against Brookins), fraud, business information misrepresentation and fraudulent concealment.
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Originally Posted by Luke
