Josh Burkman has revealed that he’s looking to part ways with the World Series Of Fighting promotion despite still having one fight left on his contract.
The former UFC fighter, who was part of the cast of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ season 2, fought just last weekend for the WSOF promotion and earned up a first round KO win over Tyler Stinson.
Burkman still has one fight remaining on his current deal with WSOF, but yesterday on Twitter he stated that he’d asked to be released from the promotion, stating that they, “did me wrong contractually.”
WSOF Vice President Ali Abdelaziz has quickly responded to this publicly, telling MMAJunkie.com that he feels “betrayed” by Burkman who he claims has made more money than anyone else in the promotion from his five fights in the past 16 months.
While it’s not entirely clear what happened, it seems that the falling out stems from Burkman’s salary for last weekend’s fight. The 33 year-old is usually paid $16,000 to show plus a $16,000 win bonus, but on this occasion he was given a flat $25,000 fee instead.
Abdelaziz explains that there was a good reason for the change in salary.
“Josh Burkman wasn’t even supposed to be on the card last weekend, but he told us he really wanted to fight, so we canceled the fight we had planned to make room for him instead. Legally, I’m not allowed to talk exact numbers, but we didn’t have his purse budgeted for this card, so he was asked if he was willing to fight for a flat fee – a fee that was more than his show money – and he agreed and said he could make up the difference in his sponsorship deals. Now he has a problem with the amount? I don’t understand it.”
Despite their disagreement, Abdelaziz is still hoping that Burkman will see out the final fight of his deal, offering him a chance to fight the winner of an upcoming welterweight title fight that’ll see newly crowned champion Rousimar Palhares take on Jon Fitch.
However, he suggests that perhaps Burkman is trying to duck out of having to fight either of those two.
“Look, if Josh Burkman wants out of his deal because he just doesn’t want to fight Rousimar Palhares or Jon Fitch, I don’t blame him – those are tough, tough guys.”
Burkman says he’s going to sit back and see what WSOF decide, but he couldn’t resist responding to that verbal jab from Abdelaziz.
“All who know me know this has nothing 2 do with not wanting to fight Fitch or Palhares,” Burkman wrote on twitter. “I have never turned down a challenge in my career.”
Whenever Burkman does move on from the WSOF promotion he’s unlikely to be short of offers. Since being released from the UFC in 2008 he’s compiled a 9-2 record and defeated a number of notable fighters, including the aforementioned Fitch, Aaron Simpson and Gerald Harris.
