Over the weekend Dana White addressed his slapping incident once again and unveiled a lot of new cards in an attempt to distract from his own personal mess. Among those major moves announced was the release of Francis Ngannou.
While White attempted to spin it as ‘Ngannou doesn’t want to compete against elite competition’ the reality might be different.
Ngannou has been vocal for ages about how he feels UFC contracts are ‘one sided’. In the fall out from his release – and becoming the first UFC champion to leave the promotion since BJ Penn in 2004, fans unearthed a clip of the likely explanation for Ngannou’s move.
“You can be free and fight for the UFC,” Ngannou told in an appearance on the MMA Hour.
“I just want to be free. We are supposedly independent contractors. [An] independent contractor is technically a free person. That’s the reason why they need some adjustments in that contract. That’s what I’ve been fighting for.”
“The term of the contract, everything that they put into, they hold you in captivity,” Ngannou said.
“You can’t do anything. You have no rights. The contract is one-sided, although you still don’t have nothing. You don’t even have health insurance, even while you’re putting your body on the line to provide to put on the show.
“You’re risking everything. There’s a lot of things. We have no insurance. Nothing. No guarantee, which I understand as an independent contractor, but treat me as such, if I am. Whether I’m going to be an employee or an independent contractor, make it very clear in the contract. It’s very mixed up.”
“That’s probably the thing that I hated most about this, how they hold all the cards, the power to just destroy you,” Ngannou added later. “As soon as you don’t say yes, they just take you down.
“There’s something wrong with me with those kind of things, that I just can’t take it.”