A New Jersey Appellate Court has overturned the portion of the Preliminary Injunction preventing Rampage Jackson from fighting this Saturday at UFC 186. According to the Court opinion issued Tuesday, the Preliminary Injunction, aside from his fight remains.
The rest of the issues will be determined by the trial court where Bellator sued Jackson for allegedly breaching his contract. Jackson claims it was Bellator that breached the agreement.
The trial court granted Bellator MMA’s preliminary injunction which precluded Jackson from fighting April 25th. However, Jackson filed an emergency appeal to reverse the trial court’s decision. The appeal went under the radar until the announcement of the opinion on Tuesday.
The Appellate Court determined that any irreparable harm that may be suffered by Bellator due to Jackson fighting on Saturday was just “vague speculation” which overturns the trial court’s determination that Jackson’s involvement at UFC 186 would have caused reputational harm as well as the opinion of the trial court that Bellator’s investment in Jackson was more than just monetary.
Brett Okamoto tweeted a pic of the 3 page order and MMA Junkie has obtained it as well.
Payout Perspective:
The Appellate Court’s opinion makes the ongoing lawsuit between Jackson and Bellator clear as mud. It also presents the issue that Bellator may either amend its legal Complaint to include the UFC or sue them separately. A footnote to the opinion indicates that there may be a time where the preliminary injunction would need to be further amended or eliminated altogether and that the parties return to the Appellate Court. The message does not put a lot of faith in the trial court. Sure, each party knew that they could seek relief from the appeals court but to have the court actually announce this in a footnote seems like an overseer of the trial court.
With that said, the Appellate Court opinion negates the trial court opinion on the issue of irreparable harm when it came to the issuance of the preliminary injunction. In essence, it believed that the trial court may have over-analyzed the issue with respect to Bellator’s investment in Rampage, the contractual landscape of MMA fighters and the unique value of Rampage. It also seemingly dismissed any argument or value in Bellator’s argument regarding reputation harm.
MMA Payout will continue to monitor.
makes sense. Jackson has lost before and entered BMMA coming off losses. He only got a couple wins. Losing a fight in the UFC hardly effects him at all. He is 95% personality at this point and fighting in the UFC gives him and BMMA nothing to lose and everything to gain from a single fight. Seeing his wins in BMMA, he hardly was impressive and winning meaningful fights. Wonder if the court took his current career status into account when making this ruling? If he was a champion or an undefeated fighter where a loss would actually mean something and greatly hurt the value of the fighter, I doubt this would have been over turned.