Adam Swift broke some news today regarding the lawsuit filed by Zuffa against Randy Couture that essentially blamed Couture for breaching his contract. Specifically, it claims that he had a one-year non-compete clause after his resignation from his contract. Zuffa claims that he broke this clause multiple times and that his recent move to sponsor a team in the IFL was the last straw. Although Couture is not directly involved in coaching the IFL team, his name is on the team's moniker.

The lawsuit also alleges two other causes of action. Conspiracy to commit tortious acts and injurious falsehood and trade disparagement. Co-conspirators are also accussed of conspiracy to commit tortious acts and injurious falsehood and trade disparagement as well, although those people are undetermined, according to Swift.

These other charges are interesting because they allege that Couture and friends conspired to fabricate an entire web of lies that would degrade the Zuffa name. All of these lies would build a story that Couture could fall back on in the event of a lawsuit or his own lawsuit. The lies would serve as evidence of the mistreatment he received from the UFC.

Those false claims were that White and Fertitta lied to him, Zuffa paid bonuses to fighters “off the book”, Zuffa did not pay Couture a signing bonus, and that Zuffa mistreated Couture and other fighters. We know that some of these lies were dealt with at the Zuffa press conference regarding Couture's claims. Zuffa even provided check stubs that stated the payment was a signing bonus. It's hard to speculate what Zuffa has up their sleeves as far as evidence goes, but the payment evidence they presented previously is enough to blast these false statements by Couture out of the water. Zuffa may very well have a case here.

Our take

This will be the first lawsuit in what could turn out to be a few lawsuits. The general concensus is that Zuffa is working on hitting the employment contract in order to slap an injunction on Couture to stop him from fighting outside the organization. In a way, they are indirectly going after Couture's fighting aspirations through his employment contract, not his promotional contract. Zuffa also wants to keep their promotional contract terms under wraps for now until completely necessary because some of the clauses inside that contract could be deemed unconscionable. The severability clause in the contract however will still keep the contract valid even if parts of it are deemed unenforceable.

To be honest, Couture's dealings with the IFL are definitely grounds for action against him. It is clear that he is competing against the UFC by having his name on the team. Swift makes this comment that cements the deal for me:

The complaint alleges that Couture signed a three-year employment contract with Zuffa in December 2006 that included a one-year non-compete provision. Zuffa says that during the non-compete period -- which commenced when Couture "resigned" from the organization last October -- any Couture-associated "business enterprise" is prohibited from "promoting or producing events or programming related to unarmed combat, developing products or services related to unarmed combat, or otherwise conducting any business relating to unarmed combat."

Any Couture-associated business enterprise is prohibited. Xtreme Couture gym's name on the IFL team would fall under this clause. It doesn't look like he can fight that claim. As for the other claims regarding conspiracies to put down the Zuffa name and lend credibility to Couture's statements, that's another discussion. We'd need more evidence and that will all come to light during the trial.

So, why would the UFC go after Couture on his promotional contract as well? It's simple. White stated that Couture would remain champion even with Sylvia and Nogueira fighting for the “interim” title very soon. The strategy is to keep Couture within the limits of his champion's clause and extend his contract terms. Couture will likely have to fight his way out of the contract, or he'll make another mistake and cause Zuffa to throw another lawsuit his way. This could get very ugly.

Any way you look at it, Couture is going to be tied down for quite some time. Luckily, he isn't fighting because as we all know, when personal trouble looms, Couture isn't as focused in the cage.