MMA Junkie reports that Wanderlei Silva will not participate at a pre-party Friday to promote Bellator 131 due to a contractual issue with the UFC. The announcement comes just a day after Bellator sent a press release announcing his appearance.
Due to prior contractual obligations, Wanderlei Silva will not be able to participate in #Bellator131‘s pre-promotion this week
— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) November 11, 2014
Silva was to appear with other former UFC veterans including Royce Gracie, Frank Shamrock and Randy Couture.
Payout Perspective:
It’s an obvious failure to communicate on behalf of Bellator and Silva. Certainly, Bellator should have checked out whether or not Silva could legally make an appearance at a Bellator event. Without seeing Silva’s actual Zuffa contract, he likely had a non-compete clause or some language within the contract stating that he could not make an appearance for another organization while still under contract with the UFC. And, it’s highly unlikely that the UFC would have granted Silva the opportunity to appear at Friday’s event and waive any legalities. Even though he has been suspended by the NAC, it does not mean his UFC contract has been terminated yet. It’s apparent that the UFC
Non competes are not needed….there are a lot of other legal principles that would prevent an employee from joining a competitor…. Doctrine of Inevitable Disclosure says if you’re a “key employee” the company pretty much owns your brain [the knowledge you have about your company’s practices/products/ IP]..the company gets to decide where/ or to which company the employee’s brain can go ..also there are corporate/economic espionage laws that either party could throw around and make allegations and tie up bellator in expensive litigation…..