Reebok Rep Comments On ‘Stitch’ And ‘Giblert’

Reebok has come under a lot of fire recently. With the name screw ups on UFC fighters jerseys, to the not so great reception from fans regarding the UFC Fight Kits and of course the firing of cutman ‘Stitch’ Duran.

Director Michael Lunardelli recently spoke on The MMA Hour about several of these topics and wanted to set the record straight for fans.

On ‘Stitch’:

“We never even had a conversation about what the stitch men are wearing, whether they were losing their sponsors or not. It wasn’t like we forgot about them, but that was going to be phase 2 of this deal. We didn’t have enough time to think about the Octagon girls, to be quite honest, or the referees or the cut man or what Joe Rogan’s wearing on stage at the weigh-ins.

“We haven’t even had time to talk about any of that stuff. We haven’t gotten there yet because we spent our first seven months desperately trying to get fight kits to fighters and training gear to fighters and all the product to get this deal kicked off. We didn’t have 18 months to two years.”

On name screw-ups (Giblert Melendez):

“The game plan very simply for us was, we decided very relatively close to the launch date that we were going to try to go live with every fighter in the UFC – which is a good thing – so we could offer every single fighter’s jersey.

“The UFC came to us and asked us if we could do it. We said we could try. So, we were moving very quickly to get to that PR launch. The way it works is, we get a list from the organization. The organization provides the list. I don’t know who the 560th fighter is in the UFC. How would I know that? How would my team know that?”

 
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