Gegard Mousasi taking John Makdessi and Fear the Fighter to court

Things are going from bad to worse for MMA apparel brand Fear the Fighter. For quite some time now the company, which lists UFC 186 fighter John Makdessi as President, has been dealing with backlash from their sponsored fighters. Early in 2014, race car driver and MMA fighter Erick Apple took to the Underground to voice his complaints with their lack of payment for his work. And in October of last year, Akira Corassani took to Twitter to say that he’d gone unpaid in his last two bouts sponsored by Fear the Fighter.

Over time, Tim Elliott, John Dodson, Georgi Karakhanyan, and Gegard Mousasi have all lodged public complaints. It’s that last guy, Mousasi, that it looks like FtF really needs to be worried about. As his manager, Nima Safapour, told MMAJunkie on Friday that Mousasi’s team has officially filed a lawsuit against the apparel company for failing to stick by their contract.

“Gegard Mousasi has filed a lawsuit against John Makdessi and Fear The Fighter Apparel,” Safapour wrote in a statement issued to MMAjunkie. “The facts speak for themselves.

“Per the public corporate records filed in Canada, John Makdessi is the president of Fear The Fighter Apparel. An unpaid debt is owed and outstanding to Mr. Mousasi (along with a number of other fighters). Despite making countless promises that payment would be forthcoming, Fear The Fighter has yet to pay the debt that they owe. They missed every deadline and used every excuse under the sun as to why they could not send a wire transfer or mail a check. They even threatened to take legal action against the athletes they owe money to if they were to publicly speak out about the monies that are owed.”

According to reports, Mousasi may be owed as much as $25,000 by the apparel company. No small amount, especially if it reflects anything close to the money Fear the FIghter may owe other athletes that have gone public about their issues with payment.

John Makdessi is set to compete at UFC 186, this Saturday, April 25th against Shane Campbell. Win or lose, it looks like he’s going to have a lot more to deal with in the coming months than just his fights in the cage.