Burt Watson is lastly telling his aspect of the story.
The previous occasion coordinator, who spent greater than a decade in a backstage position with the UFC, opened up Wednesday on The MMA Hour about his cut up with the promotion again in 2015. On the time he left the UFC, Watson solely said that an unnamed “individual of authority” within the UFC questioned his work and the way Watson dealt with issues following confusion surrounding transportation for middleweight fighter Mark Munoz again to the fighter lodge after Munoz wanted further time to make weight for his bout.
Watson, who only recently launched his autobiography Being Burt Watson, addressed the scenario Wednesday and revealed the UFC government he butted heads with earlier than in the end leaving the promotion.
“There was a scenario with Mark Munoz, I’m mentioning names, and Mark had missed weight, and he doesn’t usually do this however he missed weight and he had an hour or so to make weight,” Watson mentioned. “They gave me an additional half an hour, that means the fee, for him to make weight. They gave me that, which they don’t usually do, they gave it to me, he made weight.
“On the time, the UFC had this younger man who was a sponsorship supervisor from a authorized standpoint, the place they have been simply letting guys put on patches and stuff, and now they will’t as a result of they’ve bought a sure sponsor that everyone wears. That younger man was not a really good individual. Mike Mersch was not a really good individual.”
Michael Mersch was the senior vice chairman of enterprise, authorized, and authorities affairs on the UFC for eight years earlier than leaving that position to turn out to be the chief working officer at World Sequence of Combating. In keeping with his Linkedin, he now owns his personal authorized and consulting agency.
“He was very disrespectful to some folks when he spoke to them,” Watson mentioned. “I knew that so I attempted to maintain folks away from him. That night time, after Mark made weight, I went again to the lodge, stopped on the bar and bought myself my typical shot of Grand Marnier, simply to form of ease me down just a little bit, and I went as much as the room and the following factor I do know my cellphone rings.”
It was after returning to his room that he obtained a name from Mersch that led to a heated dialog, which ended with him quitting his job on the UFC.
“The cellphone rings and someone says, ‘The place are you?’ in a tone that I felt was disrespectful straight away,” Watson mentioned. “I’m from Philly, I form of let that go, however I backed up just a little bit. I mentioned, ‘Effectively, I’m up in my room, why?’ He mentioned, ‘Effectively, I have to see you.’ I mentioned first off, you should take that bass out of your voice and cease speaking to me in a disrespectful method.’ Proper now, I’m being good with the way in which I mentioned it. He mentioned, ‘Effectively, when you don’t get down right here…’
“When he mentioned that, I finished. I went — and I say this within the ebook — in a single shot he bought mad Burt, Black Burt, hood rat Burt, and upset Burt, multi functional shot. I cursed him O-U-T, and I mentioned to him, it bought to some extent the place I used to be feeling that he and I couldn’t operate in the identical house, and if he didn’t like that, one in every of us wanted to go in a special route.
“He mentioned to me, nobody was going to aspect with me on some foolish shit like that. I went off on him. On the finish of that dialog, I mentioned to him, ‘You recognize what? You’ll be able to take this job and put it on a seat of a chair and sit on it.’ That was good, what I simply mentioned, the way in which I mentioned it. However I mentioned that, and someway inside the subsequent three minutes or 5 minutes or so, he will need to have gone to Dana [White] to clarify that. He went to Dana together with his story.”
Watson mentioned the following morning he went downstairs and bumped into members of the UFC employees who apparently had been knowledgeable that he abruptly stop and was not working for the corporate.
Relatively than argue or making a scene, Watson determined to only change his flight plans and return dwelling, however he believes Mersch in the end informed his model of the incident to UFC CEO Dana White and that was the nail within the coffin.
“Dana had gotten the story and so they had gotten the story that I had simply stop, dangerous mouthed all people, talked about all people and I had gone dwelling,” Watson mentioned. “That’s the story that they bought. That was not true.
“Sure, I did inform him to take that job and stick it up his rear. However not that I anticipated anybody to return to me and easy issues over, however I anticipated a dialog, which I didn’t get.”
After Watson returned dwelling, he mentioned days handed with none contact from the UFC, and that actually was finish of that relationship.
“I by no means bought a cellphone name,” Watson mentioned. “I used to be by no means requested why or something. However he questioned my integrity, he questioned my work ethic, and he did it in a manner that was disrespectful, and I went to the left.
Whereas he doesn’t remorse his actions, Watson admits it nonetheless damage that no person from the UFC ever reached out to him to not less than get his aspect of the story.
With that, his time with the UFC formally got here to an in depth.
“I used to be most likely extra struck that I hadn’t [gotten a call] due to the truth that I had spent 14 years there,” Watson mentioned. “Fourteen good years, I assumed, that I used to be not requested what occurred or the way it occurred.
“So straight away in my head, it mentioned that they took no matter rationalization he gave as me disrespecting him and me quitting on him, the corporate, the group, the model and the whole lot else. That’s the way in which I took it. I heard nothing. Completely nothing.”
