SINCE MAKING HIS debut for the organisation last August, Sam Alvey has earned himself a reputation as one of the more colourful characters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Last night at UFC Fight Night 65 in Adelaide, the 29-year-old American turned a slightly different colour. During his TKO win over Daniel Kelly — which took less than a minute — Alvey competed with a sponsor’s logo spray-tanned on his chest.
The logo — which appropriately belongs to a spray-tan company — also got a plug during Friday’s weigh-ins. By doing so, Alvey was in breach of the UFC’s rules on sponsorship, but it was too late to do anything about it.
“Fighters definitely can’t do that,” said Tom Wright, managing director of UFC Operations for Canada, Australia and New Zealand, at the post-event press conference
“It’s against our policy. You can put your sponsors on your shorts, you can put your sponsors on your banner, but you can’t put your sponsors on your body.
“We’ve got a policy for that. We didn’t see it until before the fight. We tried to do something to remove it; it was unremovable. But we’ve spoken to Sam. He understands the situation. Guarantee it won’t happen again.”
The UFC stipulates that all fighters’ sponsors must be approved in advance. With their exclusive Reebok deal coming into effect in July, the organisation will be on their guard against any attempts from athletes to find loopholes.
Unfortunately the UFC shows no sympathy for the plight of the ginger man trying to get himself a tan.
