Nicco Montano and her UFC career took a turn for the worst after making history as the first flyweight champion.
A proud descendant of the Navajo tribe, the 32-year old Montano saw her four-year two-fight run where she went 1-1 come to an end in August. In the build-up to her would-be fight with Wu Yanan, Montano had a documentary titled Warrior Spirit set to be released that same month.
Montano shared when speaking on MMA on Sirius XM that there is a scene in the film where she’s seen in an exposed manner that she hadn’t agreed to. She claims the film’s creator Landon Dyksterhouse responded by telling her that she wasn’t shown in such a light when asking about the reasoning for the inclusion of the scene.
In a reply to Miesha Tate on Twitter, Dyksterhouse shared his willingness to speak from his side of things saying: “We have receipts for everything involving Warrior Spirit. The real issue is UFC’s unjust treatment of fighters.”
“When I confronted my producer who was also my lawyer at the time and asked him why is this scene in the show, I’m getting all kinds of hate and I still haven’t been able to watch the link because you’re worried I’m still gonna show the UFC something… even though I was at the tail-end of working with the UFC so I didn’t want to be involved with the film because I knew it was taking that route because they were being secretive about it,” Nicco Montano told MMA on Sirius XM. “Then the UFC was like, ‘Well, this documentary is coming out – anti-UFC – do you know about it? It has your name all over it.’ I haven’t been able to see it, I’ve been trying to ask them for a link, they’re not sending it to me.”
“When the film came out and everybody was like ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you exposing yourself? We’re native, we’re a modest people. You should have done this. Now I’m really not your fan,’” Montano said. “I have no idea what’s happening, I was never sent the link, I never said this was okay. If that part needed to be in the film… I don’t even see why it needed to be in the film.
“It’s funny because the film talks about the genocide of our people, right?” Nicco Montano added. “We get exploited by the government, the UFC exploits their fighters, and now I’m not getting any reimbursement from this show… exposed for free because I signed a contract that my lawyer did three years ago.”
Montano (4-3) went 1-1 inside the UFC octagon with her sole victory being her debut where she won the title in the finale of The Ultimate Fighter season 26 against Roxanne Modafferi.
The former champion saw nine of her fights canceled in the UFC – six being from her side – before her departure after this latest weight miss for her scheduled bout with China’s Wu.