Mikey Musumeci is one of the big stars under contract with UFC BJJ right now, but that might not be the case for much longer. Musumeci recently took part in an interview with MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, and he revealed during the broadcast that his contract was actually up for renegotiation in just a few days. He’s been under exclusive contract with the promotion for a little under a year now and has already had 3 matches with them in that time, so he’s quickly become one of their most active competitors. Musumeci also won their inaugural bantamweight title back at UFC BJJ 1, so he’s clearly a big part of their plan for the future.
Most recently Musumeci was seen successfully defending his title against Keven Carrasco at UFC BJJ 3, and he’s already looking for opponents for his next outing. There’s nothing set in stone just yet, but the promotion is apparently already attempting to book Joao Miyao as the next bantamweight challenger. Obviously the renegotiating with Musumeci is going to have to take precedence over that for the time being, but this does seem go be more of a formality than anything. Musumeci has shown no signs of wanting to go elsewhere and seeing as he already ended a relationship with ONE Championship last year, there aren’t many other places for him to go anyway.
Exclusive contracts are fairly new to the BJJ world so it’s not quite the same as MMA, where there are multiple promotions bidding for every major free agent. Regardless, someone of Musumeci’s notoriety and skill level would still be welcome at every promotion that can afford him. The real problem is that there aren’t many promotions that meet that requirement. Outside of ONE Championship and UFC BJJ, the only other promotions that tend to sign exclusive contracts are Who’s Number One and Polaris; and the latter generally only does European contracts. Only time will tell if Musumeci does get tempted to move elsewhere, but the most likely outcome here is that he re-signs with UFC BJJ.
The full interview with Mikey Musumeci where he reveals that his UFC BJJ contract is up for renewal was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Ariel Helwani Show:
