UFC fighter Leslie Smith returns to the Octagon this April at UFC Fight Night Atlantic City and her opponent is Aspen Ladd.
Smith has now launched Project Spearhead, in which the main goal is to start the process of getting fellow UFC fighters unionized.
“This is kind of just another in a long string of efforts, but I think a lot of things separate it from the other ones,” Smith told MMA Fighting. “One of them being that this has no outside influences. This is for the fighters, it was come up with by me — a fighter.”
While Smith will act as an interim president for the organization, fellow UFC fighter Kajan Johnson is going to be the interim vice president.
The female fighting star knows that their is a lot of interest from others in the UFC, but also knows a lot of people who want to join have a lot of fear about doing just that.
“Everybody is into it,” Smith said. “Everybody likes the idea of it. Everybody wants to get more bargaining power from the UFC. The thing is everybody has their different issues that they’re going through, but it’s all the same issues. It all boils down to people not getting enough respect from the UFC and being stuck in these restrictive contracts and not being able to move past that. Everybody has their different arguments with the UFC, but they’re all the same at the end of the day. I talk to people and they tell me that they are worried about their jobs. They say they want to get on board with this, but they’re worried about their jobs. I’ve been talking to some people who are really, really high up — like basically champions. And they’re still saying that they’re worried about their jobs.”
This isn’t the first attempt to get a union going in the UFC, with the MMAFA, PFA and MMAAA all failing to get the job done.
UFC Fight Night Atlantic City takes place on Saturday, April 21 from the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey with no main event announced at this time. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on Fox Sports 1.
