Now, it seems that Franklin isn't so willing to be the company man any more and is also a little uneasy about his relationship with the UFC brass. In an interview with on The MMA Hour yesterday, Franklin opened up about what he thinks about being the "company man", and how his relationship with Dana White has gone downhill in recent months, particularly after he believed he was accused of "ducking" Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 133:
According to Franklin, he found out exactly three weeks before his scheduled fight with Nogueira that the Brazilian was injured and the UFC wanted to move Gustafsson up to replace him.
"At the time I was like, well who is this guy? I don't know. So my manager, Monte Cox, said Joe Silva's going to send you over some tapes so you can at least see this guy and check it out. I said all right."
The following afternoon, Franklin said, he told his manager he'd take the fight, even though "there was nothing really appealing about the fight, and I basically told my manager that."
But, due to what Franklin described as a "communication breakdown" brought on by the stress of an injury-riddled fight card, the UFC opted instead to pull Franklin from the event altogether.
"I listened to the interview that you did with Dana, and was a bit disappointed...I'll be honest with you, I was a bit disappointed listening to that, because the tone of the interview between you and Dana almost sounded like that. I thought, first of all, I've never ducked any other opponent in my life. For that kind of stuff to come out and to question, I guess, my motives or my character or whatever, it was very upsetting to me."
"That feeling of family, it's dissipated a little bit," Franklin said. "It's not the same as it used to be when I first starting fighting for the UFC, and I basically told Lorenzo that. I said, 'Hey, I feel like sometimes you guys don't really have my back,' and he told me that they'd been really busy with the FOX deal and all that kind of stuff."
This seems to be the first time that Franklin has publicly stated any frustration or disapproval with the way the UFC is treating him, although it might just be a momentary outnburst, as toward the end of the interview, he goes right back into his typical role:"At the time I was like, well who is this guy? I don't know. So my manager, Monte Cox, said Joe Silva's going to send you over some tapes so you can at least see this guy and check it out. I said all right."
The following afternoon, Franklin said, he told his manager he'd take the fight, even though "there was nothing really appealing about the fight, and I basically told my manager that."
But, due to what Franklin described as a "communication breakdown" brought on by the stress of an injury-riddled fight card, the UFC opted instead to pull Franklin from the event altogether.
"I listened to the interview that you did with Dana, and was a bit disappointed...I'll be honest with you, I was a bit disappointed listening to that, because the tone of the interview between you and Dana almost sounded like that. I thought, first of all, I've never ducked any other opponent in my life. For that kind of stuff to come out and to question, I guess, my motives or my character or whatever, it was very upsetting to me."
"That feeling of family, it's dissipated a little bit," Franklin said. "It's not the same as it used to be when I first starting fighting for the UFC, and I basically told Lorenzo that. I said, 'Hey, I feel like sometimes you guys don't really have my back,' and he told me that they'd been really busy with the FOX deal and all that kind of stuff."
"If the UFC said something to me about fighting at middleweight again, I'd be great with that," he said, though he clarified that he's not about to request anything specific along those lines. "...If they're not going to let me work toward a title, in the meantime as long as I can just work at putting on exciting fights and that stuff, then I'm good with doing that."