One post on social media has landed Fabricio Werdum in some hot water with the UFC.
Earlier in the week, the former heavyweight champion uploaded a photo of himself wearing a UFC fight kit emblazoned with a Nike logo.
He captioned the post, “I’m not generic, I’m Nike since childhood! #suck #myballs #reebok,” which couldn’t possibly misconstrued as anything other than a dig against Reebok, the official outfitting sponsor of the UFC.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL_qSHCgi46/
The Brazilian has been back on Instagram since. He recently uploaded a video of himself explaining the fallout of his protest against the sportswear manufacturing behemoths.
He confirmed that he was not fined over the incident, but instead he was removed from his UFC TV duties as punishment. Werdum has worked for several years as an analyst and a commentator for the UFC in Latin America. (Translation via MMA Fighting)
“I just want to make everything clear about my post of Nike and Reebok. I did this to protest about the sponsor. Before Reebok got into UFC, all the fighters use to do a lot of money with other sponsors, including me, and now they paying me only $5,000 per fight. I didn’t get penalized because I have to contract with them, but they cut me out of the TV broadcast #UFCnetwork.”
He explained that he started his protest out of frustration with the much-maligned Reebok deal, claiming he used to bank as much as $200,000 in sponsorship revenue per fight before the Reebok deal came into effect, but now he’s down to just $5,000 every time he enters the Octagon.
Werdum is currently the number-one ranked UFC heavyweight and is expected to take on ex-champion Cain Velasquez on at UFC 207 on New Year’s Eve. The last time the pair fought, Werdum won the title by sinking in a guillotine choke in the the third round of their main event bout at UFC 188. The winner of this fight will more than likely earn a crack at Stipe Miocic’s throne next.
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