Despite buying her out this past weekend, the UFC may not have seen the last of Leslie Smith.
Mere days after the promotion opted to part ways with the bantamweight veteran by paying her what marked the last fight purse on her contract when Aspen Ladd missed weight for their ill-fated fight at UFC Fight Night 128, Smith revealed she'd be taking legal action against the company on Monday's edition of "The MMA Hour."
The 35-year-old hadn't expected the UFC to re-sign her due to her unionization efforts with Project Spearhead, but posited an extension with the promotion in exchange for agreeing to face Ladd at a catchweight. The UFC instead opted to pay her show and win money ($62K total), thereby fulfilling what remained of Smith's contract and effectively ending its ties with her. Smith believes the company bought her off, and now aims to take her grievances to both the National Labor Relations Board and to court in her native California.
"It’s my opinion that what the UFC did was illegal," Smith said. "Because they have created a situation where it encourages a climate of fear where the other people in the UFC on the roster are going to be fearful of publicly organizing and standing up for their rights.
"By creating a climate of fear, that violates federal law. That’s the whole point of the National Labor Relations Board and the laws that are in there."
UFC fight purses are not guaranteed, and any compensation for fighters in the event a bout unexpectedly falls through at the 11th hour is entirely at the company's discretion. Outright buyouts akin to Smith's are far scarcer.
Smith said fighting Ladd once the company had offered her the $62K would have conflicted with her efforts as a labor leader, and she now hopes the NLRB will determine that UFC fighters are in fact employees - not independent contractors - in litigation. She's currently consulting with labor lawyer Lucas Middlebrook - an adviser to Project Spearhead - and has started a GoFundMe campaign to cover her legal fees.
The California native is not eligible for a union now that she's no longer on the UFC roster, but maintained she'll still support Project Spearhead wholeheartedly. The initiative's mandate is to accrue authorization cards from 30 percent of the roster - the figure required for submission to the NLRB - by February of next year.
"The important thing now is to make it so that other fighters don’t have to take the fall. They don’t have to do anything publicly in order to protect themselves right now. All they have to do is sign authorization cards. That’s it. Nobody will ever know. The National Labor Relations Board will never release their names."
Smith parted ways with the UFC on a two-fight win streak with a promotional record of 4-3.
- With h/t to MMA Fighting
