While a pair of class action suits against the UFC, alleging the promotion conspired to keep fighter pay low, have been in the news of late, a third lawsuit has been slowly dragging along through the courts, at times barely clinging to life.
That would be former UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt’s lawsuit against the promotion, which was initially launched in 2016, dismissed in 2021, revived on appeal, and dismissed again, with Hunt ordered to pay attorney’s fees and court costs to the UFC last year. A second ruling, reducing those fees and questioning why the UFC was demanding $20,000 more per expert witness than the law allows, was issued this part March.
Hunt, however, is nothing if not obstinate, refusing to let the case die. In April, he filed a motion to unseal all documents obtained through the discovery process in his RICO lawsuit against the promotion. His appeal of the case continues, before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Among the arguments present in the appeal, a claim that UFC CEO and President Dana White perjured himself in testimony given in 2022, when he stated that he had no knowledge of Brock Lesnar being granted an exemption from USADA testing ahead of UFC 200 in 2016.
USADA officials previously confirmed to Cageside Press that the UFC, and UFC alone, had the power to issue such exemptions.
Lesnar defeated Hunt by decision at the historic event, only for it to turn out that he had failed a drug test, administered prior to the card on July 9, 2016. Results were, according to those involved, not available until after the fact. Hunt cried foul, and despite continuing to fight several more times for the company, took legal action against them.
“I’ve still got an active lawsuit against them, it’s the same lawsuit I filed nearly a decade ago. It was thrown out the first time, well the only time it’s been thrown out, is because I had some crooked lawyers,” Hunt told Cageside Press in a new interview, barely more than a week after the UFC’s antitrust lawsuit settlement was struck down by a Nevada judge. “My first set of lawyers were crooked, they were paid off probably by Dana and his cohorts,” Hunt alleged. “That lady, Christina Denning, sabotaged my case, they had a summary judgement and threw the whole thing out because there was no evidence provided – because she wouldn’t provide any evidence. So she’s a criminal, and because of her malpractice it went nowhere.”
Denning represented Hunt through years of the legal process, including in the immediate aftermath of UFC 200, even negotiating with the UFC on behalf of Hunt after the fighter turned down a bout with Junior Dos Santos over unacceptable terms.
“Over a year ago I filed an appeal, it was approved in two days. I was made pro se as a litigant,” added Hunt. “It’s hard to explain a civil RICO lawsuit in 20 minutes or 30 minutes. What I can tell you is, where it sits now, we’re just waiting for the judge’s orders. If you’re familiar with RICO, they’ve got a lot of issues, Dana White, he’ll be going to jail with the rest of these criminals that were part of this RICO contravention.”
Of course, Hunt’s matter remains before the courts, and any punitive measures for White and the UFC remain to be seen, given the case is as yet unproven. Under RICO laws, anyone convicted of two acts of racketeering in a ten year period can be sentenced to up to twenty years in prison, and fined $25,000 while forced to forfeit any ill-gotten gains.
Hunt, who once stated that “I don’t care if you’re cheating or not. I’ll punch your face in” in the weeks prior to UFC 200, now recognizes that fighting performance enhancing drug users was likely hazardous to his health.
“As I’ve gone in my career, I fought against juicers that always ruined the fight. Whether it was a good fight, a win or a loss, it was always not good for my record. It wasn’t good for my health also,” Hunt admitted. And whether a given fight became a no contest, whether he won or lost, Hunt added that he “always said to those in charge, ‘can you do something about it?'”
“A couple of times before that Brock Lesnar incident, there was a fight, Alistair Overeem, a few other guys. I did say, ‘can you do something about it?'”
Even before the Overeem fight, Hunt noted, when he fought Frank Mir, “he popped. I said ‘can you do something about it, Dana?’ he said ‘no, it’s up to USADA.’ Bigfoot Silva, again, I said ‘can you do something about the fight, can you do something about this? I don’t give a sh*t about his money, just don’t give him any money. I don’t want to get any money.'”
According to Hunt, White again told him that action taken over fighters taking PEDs was up to USADA. “As I go on with my lawsuit and find discovery, USADA’s part of their pocket. They’re all in cahoots, the whole lot of them. The L.A. [California] commission, USADA, Jeff Novitzky, Dana White, all of them have been colluding against me. They’ve been colluding together for over a decade.”
Part of Hunt’s appeal, several pages of which dated from May which he previously posted online, alleges that Jeff Novitzky, Senior Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance for the UFC, circulated an e-mail ahead of UFC 200 instructing UFC staff on how to handle the “optics” of Lesnar’s exemption from USADA testing in the months ahead of his fight with Hunt – the same exemption Dana White professed to be unaware of.
Hunt went on to note that no one from the promotion ever reached out to him over the number of cheating fighters he was forced to share the cage with, and takes umbrage with the lack of an apology. Beyond that, “if they’re not going to do something about it, I will. Despite the millions, millions of people laughing and mocking me and saying ‘you can’t do that, they’re a billion dollar company’ – I don’t give a sh*t if they’re a billion dollar company. When you’re doing the wrong thing, you’re doing the wrong thing. You’re billion dollar company could be ended in an instant with a RICO lawsuit.”
Mark Hunt would later suggest that the UFC’s split with USADA in 2023 came about in part because of his lawsuit, which has also focused on the anti-doping agency.
“The reason I stood up against the UFC was, they said to me, ‘we’ve got the best testing policies in the globe, in the world. We’ve got USADA, we’ve got a guy in Jeff Novitzky that caught Lance Armstrong. Okay, okay motherf*ckers, great. Cool. But as I found out through discovery [in the lawsuit], USADA was in their pocket. They were all colluding against me, the whole lot of them. I can’t f*cking believe it. It’s f*cking ridiculous, and this sh*t’s evident.”
“That’s one of the reasons why I feel USADA left, when they broke up with the UFC, is because they tried to push Conor McGregor through, and then that f*cking USADA idiot says ‘oh no we can’t do that again.’ Why? Is it because you’ve got a f*cking lawsuit against you, motherf*cker? That’s right, it’s because you’ve got a f*cking lawsuit that’s going to break your ass right here and now, and UFC wants to put through another guy and give them another exemption? That ain’t happening, man.”
The UFC and USADA partnership closed out at the end of 2023, with a very public spat emerging between the promotion and USADA CEO Travis Tygart. That dispute was in part over whether or not McGregor would qualify for an exemption from testing upon returning to action following the leg injury he sustained in his 2021 rubber match with Dustin Poirier.
UFC officials staunchly denied that any such exemption would be forthcoming. McGregor has yet to make his return, but the UFC’s relationship with the anti-doping body had already soured, leaving them to partner up with Drug Free Sport and the newly formed Combat Sports Anti-Doping – the latter a body funded by the promotion itself and led by former FBI agent George Piro.
