By Denny “The Mad One” Hodge
It’s now been several days since we found out that Jon Fitch is back in the UFC after signing on the dotted line for undisclosed terms relating to the “UFC 2009 Undisputed” video game following a meeting with UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta.
In a phone interview with EDGE, an industry leading game network site, Fitch expounded on the situation and gave a few more details concerning the incident: “Mostly, it didn’t really have anything to do with the game, it was more or less the way that Dana brought [the contract] to us. It was a respect thing. He talked down to us as fighters despite the work we’ve done for them.”
It doesn’t seem that Fitch had a problem with the deal per se, but more with how it was presented to him as a person and as a fighter saying, “In all reality, the chances that I would get a video game deal of my own–that’d probably never happen. It’s more about how they brought the agreement to us rather than the agreement itself.”
According to Kris Graft from EDGE, the maker of the game (THQ) had no comment, and that the issue “is between the UFC and their fighters.”
Fitch was clear in the conversation that the most important thing to him is fighting and not marketing, adding, “I just care about the fighting. I don’t care about all that other stuff. I don’t really have the desire to have my face out there in the form of a doll or a videogame or whatever. I don’t really care. But you don’t really get the choice of not being a part of it. … It doesn’t really matter to me.”