UFC bosses Dana White and Hunter Campbell were in a Nevada court last week answering questions about the lack of disclosure materials handed over in another series of antitrust lawsuits filed by fighters.
Just like Le vs. Zuffa — which ended with fighters from 2012 to 2017, reaching a $375 million settlement — Johnson v. Zuffa accuses the UFC of using monopoly power to artificially reduce fighters’ pay, this time from 2017 forward. Cirkunov v. Zuffa argues that UFC fighters who signed class action arbitration clauses should still be able to participate in Johnson v. Zuffa, and Davis v. Zuffa represents non-UFC fighters who claim they were also harmed by the UFC’s anticompetitive conduct.
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All of these antitrust cases are being handled together by Judge Richard Boulware, the same judge who oversaw the settlement of Le vs. Zuffa. According to the fighters’ attorneys, years worth of communications from White, Campbell and UFC attorney Tracy Long were completely missing from the discovery documents turned over, leading to last week’s spoliation hearing.
If the UFC fails to uncover that data, it could be on the verge of serious legal repercussions from Judge Boulware.
Those who listened to the forfeiture hearing that took place on February 11 and 12, 2026 were not treated to gripping courtroom drama, even when UFC CEO Dana White and CBO Hunter Campbell took the stand. Instead, there was a lot of back-and-forth about who did what work related to the fighter contracts, how these people communicated with each other, and what happened to the old phones that the various employees were using.
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The purpose of the hearing was to determine why five years of communications from White and Long were not turned over to the embattled attorneys. There was also a phone from Campbell that was never scanned, which the plaintiffs alleged was used to send more than 3,000 messages to UFC partners. All in all, the testimony offered painted a picture of the UFC being grossly negligent in its legal responsibility to maintain and turn over records for the court.
Legal expert John Nash was in Nevada to attend the hearing and discussed the potential outcomes of the spoliation hearing on his Substack podcast.
“The judge will probably give the plaintiffs some kind of punishment,” Nash said on Hey Not The Face. “He said these are punishable offences. The question is: on a spectrum of what he can do and a spectrum of how many faults he finds with it, what is he going to do?”
The UFC has claimed that Dana White is no longer involved in anything related to UFC fighters, contracts or matchmaking, meaning the years of lack of communication don’t count. Boulware’s questioning of White suggested that he did not quite buy this argument.
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“If the judge decides that this material is really relevant to the case, that there is material there that is important,” Nash said. “Not just a small amount, but a large amount, which is very important, which would demonstrate the workings of the UFC business, and it’s missing. So how do you run a case? How do plaintiffs make their case? How does the judge decide? How does the jury?”
“The judge has to make a ruling on these arbitration agreements,” Nash said of Cirkunov v. Zuffa. “He has to make a decision on these class-action arbitration waivers, and basically he could say, ‘I have to decide with [fighters] because the material that could either prove the plaintiff’s case or prove the defendant’s case is missing.'”
“And because he is missing due to his gross negligence or malicious intent [UFC]I am compelled by the adverse inference to weigh it in favor of the plaintiffs in that cause. I must waive these arbitration agreements and class action waivers under Nevada law. And so all the fighters… are now back in the Johnson class.”
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The more class fighters are represented, the more money is at stake as this antitrust case moves forward. The $375 million Le v. Zuffa settlement would be a pittance compared to how much money the Johnson v. Zuffa fighters could sue for. And that adverse finding because of the sanctioned discovery violations could haunt the UFC through a lawsuit of its own.
“If it goes to trial,” Nash said. “[The judge] could go to the trial and say, “Since this material is missing, I think you should make a negative finding that you, the jury, are free to interpret at any time that there is an argument based on material that we do not have. You can weigh that it is most adverse to [UFC] and most beneficial for [fighters].”
Judge Boulware has given UFC lawyers 30 more days to sort out the mess of missing cell phones and records, but it looks like the years of missing communication with Dana White won’t be recovered. It’s unknown how the judge will react to this, but he made it clear that he is extremely unhappy with how poorly the UFC kept their records despite being under a court order to save them.
The legal ramifications of his ruling on the matter could be massive and push the UFC toward another multi-million dollar settlement with its fighters.