Not, like, the individual. The phrase, specifically.
Last week ZUFFA LLC filed an attempt to legally trademark “BMF” and “The Baddest Motherf—er” in an effort to further monetize the UFC’s newest money-grab, aka it’s recently announced “BMF Belt” showdown between Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal. Bloody Elbow posted the half dozen ways Zuffa and the UFC are working to keep their brain child theirs to profit off of.
If they’re granted the trademarks, people will have to pay the UFC a hefty little chunk of change to put the words on pretty much anything. And while it’s possible that the filing is just there to prevent other fight promotions from creating their own BMF belts and merchandising, it’s also conceivable that Dana and the team will be pushing merch of their own. According to the paperwork, that could include “Baddest Motherfucker” Christmas ornaments, video games, action figures, trophies, or giant overblinged platinum nameplates on rope chains.
The trademark would also prevent the fighters who introduced the phrase into the MMA lexicon from being able to profit from it, which is typical but also not entirely cool.
Certainly fighters have been using monickers like “baddest mofo” and iterations thereof for a long time, but it was Diaz who took it from mat flattery to a headline-making UFC commodity this summer.
“Now we’re fighting for the baddest motherf—ker in the game belt,” Diaz said after UFC 241, referring to what he and fellow fan favorite Masvidal fight for when they throw down in the non-championship ring.
Fingers crossed for the Official UFC Baddest Motherfucker footie pajamas to be released before Christmas.
