Rising Flyweight Signs New Deal With UFC

Ben Nguyen fought Geane Herrera at UFC Fight Night 101, fulfilling his UFC contract. Now the flyweight star is back after signing a new deal with the promotion. Nguyen, who didn’t like the initial offer by the UFC, stated that after he got a new management team, everything worked out well.

“We had a chat with [the UFC], and they threw us an offer that we weren’t really particularly happy with,” Nguyen said to The MMA Circus. “I had kind of asked around — I reached out to Cung Le, actually. And he was like, ‘Hey, I’ll look around. You obviously need a proper manager.’ Before, I was having my friend who sells real estate kind of just chat to the UFC. But that wasn’t his full-time gig. Cung Le, he was able to hook me up with Jason House from Iridium Sports Agency. [House] pretty much took it from there. I got hold of him, and he was just really excited to work with me. I could have shopped around for managers and stuff, but I just had a good feeling about him. He negotiated me a pretty solid deal. He got the new contract within the next two, three hours. I’m pretty happy with that. I guess you could say it was pretty smooth. He was able to make it happen with the wave of his wand, like a magician almost. I was like, ‘Wow, we’ve known each other for three hours and you’ve already negotiated my contract. Alright, sweet.’”

Now that Nguyen has got a real manager to handle his business affairs, the benefits will be helping him by allowing him to focus more on his fight preparation.

“(It’s) huge,” he said. “I felt like I was doing a lot of work myself. And it really helps to have someone that not only is negotiating, but he’s a lawyer, as well, so he can look through the contract and spot things out. He’s known in the business. Everyone knows who Jason House is. He works with a lot of top guys, and he talks to the matchmaker every day. And that’s his full-time job, so I don’t have to wait for a buddy of mine to get off work to make a phone call.”

Nguyen (14-7-0) has a 3-1-0 record in the UFC, with those wins coming over the trio of Alptekin Ozkilic, Ryan Benoit and Geane Herrera.