Who is Hunter Campbell and what is his position in the UFC?
Hunter Campbell's name frequently comes up in legal matters regarding the UFC.
According to Hunter Campbell's LinkedIn profile, he is currently the Executive Vice President and the Chief Business Officer of the UFC and has been holding the position since April 2019. Before that, Campbell was the Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel for the promotion from January 2017 to April 2019, a role he continues to play in his new capacity.
Hunter Campbell is a graduate of Washington University, University of Nevada, and Columbia University. He worked as a Managing Partner at the Campbell & Williams law firm between August 2012 and January 2017.
Hunter Campbell was recently mentioned by former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones in his tweets, demanding to be compensated fairly by the UFC for fighting the new heavyweight king Francis Ngannou. A few days ago, Campbell's name came up again because of a social media post by recently-released UFC fighter Diego Sanchez.
Former UFC fighter Diego Sanchez recently leaked a phone call he had with Hunter Campbell:
In a now-deleted Instagram post, UFC veteran Diego Sanchez posted a video of a recorded phone conversation from April 9. The call took place between Hunter Campbell and Diego Sanchez's coach, Joshua Fabia, who seems to be at the center of most controversies surrounding Sanchez.
Also Read: UFC legend Diego Sanchez's 5 craziest moments
Diego Sanchez captioned the post with, "Listen to it for yourself... None of this is normal fans, friends, family, fighters, and casuals."
The conversation that went on for around 7 minutes was about Sanchez's team reaching out to the UFC for the fighter's medical records throughout his history with the promotion. The request kickstarted a chain of events that eventually led UFC officials to believe that Diego Sanchez was not at a hundred percent to compete inside the octagon and was subsequently released by the UFC.
"The direct quote I received was, you stated that the quote ‘long-term effects of Diego being an MMA fighter’ were your basis for requesting... So I went through this with (former UFC fighter) Mark Hunt, and here’s the reality: If you’re concerned or (Sanchez is) concerned that he’s having negative effects, then we’re not going to fight him and I’m going to pull the fight right now and we’re going to call it a day and we’ll release him and he can go do something else with his life, because I’m not putting anybody in that cage that doesn’t feel 100% or thinks they’re suffering from any medical issues," Hunter Campbell said in the phone call.
Diego Sanchez was scheduled to fight Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone at UFC Vegas 26 on May 8, 2021. Sanchez was pulled from the fight earlier last week before the UFC announced his release. It is possible that both the decisions were based on the aforementioned request.