Legendary mixed martial arts and boxing cutman Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran was recently fired by the UFC for speaking out against the Reebok deal in a recent interview with BloodyElbow.com.
“This is what I do full time. I also do boxing and the pay scale is a little different there,” Duran said. “The fighters pay you directly in boxing, where in MMA it’s the promoters that pay you to work the event instead of with the individual boxers. With boxers, especially when you’re working for the top dogs, you make more so the sponsorship money was nice to have [in MMA]. So I might have to start looking more at boxers again.”
Dana White on ‘Stitch’ Duran: We’re not friends
However, Duran said that if the UFC offered to bring him back on board with the promotion, he would definitely be willing to sit down and negotiate a deal.
Following UFC on FOX 16 on Saturday night, UFC President Dana White spoke to FOX Sports’ Karyn Bryant in a backstage interview and said that Duran will never return to the UFC as a cutman.
“He won’t be coming back,” White confirmed. “The crazy thing is, first of all, we have 10 cutmen that work here at the UFC. Lorenzo [Fertitta] and I decided we would hire cutmen for the fighters early on, when we bought the UFC.
“Stitch Duran needs to learn what the meaning of the word friend is. Stitch Duran and I were never friends,” he continued. “We were work associates, we came up together in the boxing world, and when we hired cutman, he was one of the guys I brought in here.
“Friends are people you call on the phone, you hang out with, you talk to all the time. Don House is one of our cutman; he and I were very close, and still are. But Stitch Duran was never my friend. Another thing about Stitch Duran, saying that I should’ve called him. I’ve never dealt with the cutmen ever, we have a department that deals with them. We weren’t friends, we’re not friends, and no he shouldn’t have been expecting a call from me. If he’s my friend, why didn’t he reach out to me?”
Duran won’t be unemployed for long, though, as WSOF President Ray Sefo already announced he has acquired Duran’s services for the upcoming WSOF event, WSOF 22, on Aug. 1.
Check out the full interview below.
