Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdu isn't a fan of Reebok, if his social media is any indication.
It seems that Reebok has made it's presence heard to the former champion's colorful Instagram protest, as Werdum has been pulled from international broadcasting duties for the UFC.
Werdum made a second Instagram post, explaining his side after he was removed from his UFC related television duties. MMA Fighting was the first to report the news.
"I just want to make everything clear about my post of Nike and Reebok. I did this to protest about the sponsorship," Werdum wrote on the post. "Before Rebook 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."
Below is the Instagram post Werdum published:
Werdum even took to his official Facebook page to talk about his reasoning behind protesting the Reebok sponsorship.
"It was just a protest," Werdum said. "Something that before we could show any sponsor we wanted. We used to get real good money, it was a lot different from Reebok. Today, with Reebok there is a pay scale, if you have a certain number of fights you get $5,000, $8.000. Of course it's good money, but nothing like it was before, so of course it was a protest. I think fighters need to start speaking because no one is happy," Werdum continued. "It's something that is in our contract, we have to sign it and end of story. We don't have options. It was nice because it [the photo] was featured even in Globo.com. People talking, 'Werdum signed with Nike', no, but if Nike is interested, we're here. The people thinking I will get in trouble, nothing will happen," he said. "I even tell the fighters, if some company won't sponsor you, you have to cover up their names, gloves, shin guards, don't make free promotion. That's our job, our image, our fights. Just because someone sends you some gloves you don't need to keep making several posts with them. That's not how it works, you have to value your image."
The UFC’s international television partners, Reebok or the UFC themselves have yet to issue a statement of any kind of the situation.
