As first not reported here, Wanderlei Silva accused the UFC of fixing fights. At that time, as was reported here first, wild and unfounded speculation was this is “UFC is going to sue you” stuff.
And they have.
The world’s premier organization for presenting non fixed mixed martial arts contests in a professional setting, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has sued The Axe Murderer and current dude still under contract to the UFC itself though don’t call him an employee, Wanderlei Silva.
Twitter probably broke the news with some other sites then seeing it and thinking, “Hey, we can pretend we broke this and don’t have to credit anyone because who is @IHEARTFIGHTING anyways?”
Hence why the only news is that it is for “intentional misconduct” – which it appears it simply a categorizing system used by Nevada courts.
The suit itself will be out soon and more all the details will be known at that time. Well, they won’t, because people will read it and then make immediate judgment about the merits of the case. Some of these people will even be lawyers. None of it will matter because if the suit goes on and drags out – as they always do – so much will come out.
Thus a warning: don’t read too much into anyone’s reporting on this (except mine).
Without looking at said complaint, but just guessing based on the timing, it’s probably the UFC suing Silva because Silva said they fixed fights. One need not be a lawyer to understand that. It’ll all be a variation of that. “Intentional infliction of emotional distress” or “intentional interference with business practices” or “libel/defamation.” I’m pretty sure they’ll have a libel per se claim. Meaning….? They don’t have to prove damages because certain forms of defamation have automatic monetary damages – and defaming someone’s business character in public is one of those forms of defamation. LAW!
Silva’s conduct would, in fact, be intentional (as opposed to an accident) and he’d be open to more than just normal damages but punitive damages as well.
As a general principle, civil (i.e. cases where you don’t go to jail) suits involving intentional conduct are more difficult to prove than the non-intentional ones because proving intent is always tricky.
This one might be a touch easier.
Also, expect Silva to immediately file a counter suit – probably within a month or so. He will allege breach of contract, bring his own defamation suit, probably mix in a variation of civil theft (it has another name but that’s what it is), and so on. If you can guess it, he’ll bring it.
Sadly, this may bring to an end his insane Twitter rants. (It won’t because I feel like he will not listen to his lawyer who is right now screaming, “STOP SAYING SHIT LIKE THAT ON TWITTER!”)
Stay tuned though because we will cover this better than everyone because we are better than everyone.
Silva’s only defense, if any, is to say he was intentionally referring to Zuffa in general and not UFC specifically, and since Zuffa owns/owned PrideFC he can claim he was referring to those fixed fights in that other promotion.
> ….but even that might be considered grasping for straws though.