“Dana White has such control”- Tim Kennedy reveals how fear killed Mixed Martial Arts Athlete Association
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Tim Kennedy
Tim Kennedy is a retired MMA fighter and current soldier in the U.S. Army. Kennedy has been vocal about fighters’ rights throughout his MMA career and talked about getting healthcare and other facilities for the fighters. Tim talked about his organisation and revealed what was the reason for its failure.
Tim Kennedy started his professional MMA career in 2003 and trained with UFC legend Chuck Liddell. Tim was also simultaneously part of the U.S. Army and was deployed in Afghanistan and rarely fought because of Army deployments overseas. Kennedy made his UFC debut in 2013 and fought top fighters like Michael Bisping, Yoel Romero and Kelvin Gastelum.
In late 2016, Tim became part of a movement for UFC fighters to get their deserved pay, healthcare and other facilities. MMAAA (the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association) was launched by former Bellator owner Bjorn Rebney and top UFC fighters: Georges St-Pierre, Cain Velasquez, Donald Cerrone, and T.J. Dillashaw.
MMAAA, however, failed because many fighters like Donald Cerrone and T.J. Dillashaw pulled back their support from the association. Tim Kennedy, in his recent interview, revealed why MMAAA failed and said it was because of the fear fighters had that stopped them from getting into the association.
He said: “We went to the major fight camps, and it was like, ‘You have to sign this,’ and there was nothing besides, it’s two paragraphs that, ‘I want to be part of this organization and this organization will collectively go and address fighter issues.’ That’s what this document said, and there was such fear of the repercussions from the organization that nobody would do it. That’s how it died. So the guys that you saw as the face of it, there were those five, and then there were about another 25 [athletes who signed on with us], and then we had a roster of 500 that didn’t.”
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“It exceeded the expectation”- Tim Kennedy talks about his new book ‘Scars and Stripes’
Tim Kennedy talked about his book ‘Scars and Stripes’ in his recent interview with Ariel Helwani at The MMA Hour. Tim explained how his book has exceeded the publisher’s expectations and they might delay other releases for his book.
Talking about the book, Tim said, “It exceeded the publisher’s expectation… We’ve sold all the books that printed. So [the publishers] are currently like going to start kicking other authors to a later publish date, so they can reprint my book.“
Tim Kennedy has written this book to tell his life journey, and he also tries to tell that failure isn’t the end, but the first step to discovering one’s best self. In his book, Tim shares his various failures and tells how they helped him become a better man. Tim is currently serving in the U.S. Army and retired from MMA in 2017.
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Sparsh Sharma
(196 Articles Published)