In late March 2016, the UFC was riding as high as it ever had. Coming off a hastily constructed event starring Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz that organically generated a box-office and pay-per-view bonanza, another boon came when, after years of stalling, the New York State Assembly finally passed a bill that legalized mixed martial arts.
At UFC headquarters in Las Vegas, the development was viewed as such a watershed moment that company CEO Lorenzo Fertitta led the entire office in a champagne toast.
But what seemed like the beginning of a new cycle of prosperity quickly spiraled into something else entirely. Within weeks, ESPN.com reported that the UFC’s owners were in advanced talks to sell the promotion. Shortly after that, Fertitta and his brother Frank were out as majority owners, taking a multibillion-dollar payday in selling to a consortium led by Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG.
With that, everything changed. The family shop officially became what it had quietly been for years: big business.
It may or may not be a coincidence that in the time since the $4 billion sale, the UFC’s athletes have become more vocal about perceived management slights, pay concerns and injustices than ever in the promotion’s history.
Its detractors are numerous and diverse.
Just days ago, longtime welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who is largely viewed as the linchpin of the promotion’s success in Canada and a reliable pay-per-view star, declared himself a free agent, setting in motion the near certainty of pending legal action between the two sides.
In a lengthy and candid interview with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, St-Pierre said an inability to reach a new deal over the course of several months contributed to his public disenchantment.
“Most fighters in the UFC, they are starving,” he said. “And for UFC, it’s very easy when you keep a lot of your staff starving, they are easier to control.”
St-Pierre’s case recalls that of former UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture, who attempted a similar maneuver in 2007 before scrapping his attempt at free agency in favor of signing a new deal with the UFC.
In the past, most dust-ups involved only the biggest names on the roster, as those with less seniority or promotional value saw little good in publicly criticizing the organization and facing potential repercussions.
That attitude has changed drastically.
Over the last few months, many members of the rank and file, from bona fide superstars to mid-level athletes to relative newcomers, have gone on the record with issues that as recently as a year ago they discussed only in private among teammates and close confidantes.
Take, for instance, the case of Al Iaquinta, a lightweight who began competing in the UFC in 2012 and reached as high as No. 12 in the rankings before going under the knife for knee surgery in December 2015.
Weeks ago, Iaquinta blasted the UFC on The MMA Hour, saying management had stripped him of the ability to earn post-fight bonuses for three bouts, denied him a chance to renegotiate his contract and originally declined to pay for surgery on the knee he injured while competing for the promotion.
Iaquinta, a native New Yorker, was so incensed that he eventually turned down the opportunity to fight in his home state at Madison Square Garden. He then took it a step further, saying he had retired and moved on to a career in real estate.
There are plenty of others.
Women’s featherweight standout Cris Cyborg has openly and repeatedly questioned the UFC’s approach toward her, saying on Fox Sports’ Speak for Yourself she would have her own division if she had “blond hair and blue eyes,” a swipe at the UFC’s treatment of star Ronda Rousey.
A few weeks ago, interim featherweight champion Jose Aldo asked for his release and promised he would never again fight in the UFC—a move prompted, he told Combate (h/t MMA Fighting), by his distrust in UFC President Dana White after being passed over for a unification bout with Conor McGregor. Aldo met with UFC brass Wednesday, and although he suggested the meeting was productive, he seemed to leave with the same plans he arrived with, telling MMAjunkie, “I think we need to go our own ways.”
There are others. Lightweight contender Khabib Nurmagomedov recently lashed out after saying he felt like a pawn used to set up UFC 205’s McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez main event. In the aftermath, Nurmagomedov told The Luke Thomas Show that if he didn’t get a title shot after fighting (and presumably beating) Michael Johnson in November, he’d not only leave the UFC but also flex his influence to make sure the promotion never held an event in Russia.
Women’s bantamweight contender Julianna Pena told MMA Fighting she too was considering leaving the promotion after disagreeing with its handing Rousey a title shot upon her return.
Heavyweight veteran Mark Hunt has been at loggerheads with the promotion since after his UFC 200 opponent Brock Lesnar failed a drug test, which marked the third time he fought an opponent who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in competition.
“People are scared for years because the company is going to get them,” Hunt told MMA Fighting in July. “Well, f–k the company. They don’t give a s–t about you or anyone else.”
Even welterweight Lorenz Larkin got in on the act, telling Fox Sports of his frustrations in getting marketed despite an exciting style that jibes with the promotion’s usual preferences.
“There’s no push for me,” he said. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done by myself or with my team as far as on my side. On the other side, I’ll take any fight and I bring it every time I step into the cage, but as far as me getting pushed as an athlete, that’s not happening.”
Adding to the frayed nerves, the new ownership recently purged the UFC’s employee rolls, laying off a number of key executives and support personnel. In total, about 15 percent of the workforce was let go, according to MMAjunkie. There have also been rumblings that ownership will trim down the athlete roster next. All this is taking place under the evolving fighter rights movement, with the new Professional Fighters Association working to organize UFC athletes into a united front.
All things considered, for new management it’s been a wobbly beginning at best and an inauspicious one at worst.
That couldn’t contrast more from the results on paper.
As 2016 goes, it has been something of a banner year. More specifically, the final six months of the year may well break every revenue record for a comparable time frame.
During that time, the promotion is likely to boast four pay-per-view events that surpass 1 million pay-per-view buys.
According to Dave Meltzer, both UFC 200 and UFC 202 passed the 1 million mark. UFC 205, featuring McGregor headlining the UFC’s New York arrival, is a near-lock to blow past that number and has a reasonable shot to set a record for event buys. The next month, Rousey returns in a show that is also likely destined to shoot into the seven figures.
To contextualize how rare a stretch like this is, the UFC went a span of over three years without a single one million PPV seller from August 2010 to December 2013, according to numbers compiled by MMA Payout through the Wrestling Observer.
For the new ownership, these are heady days but tricky ones. From the outside, the UFC may have seemed like an obvious and winning investment, but things have sure gotten difficult fast.
Back in the mid-2000s when investors were throwing money at MMA startups, White had a go-to spiel about promoters who thought they could waltz into the space and immediately make a fortune. It went something like this: “These guys have no clue what they’re doing. We’re in the fight business. We live and breathe this thing.”
Now, aside from White, that’s no longer true. He’s one of the last remaining fight-business purists, the livers and breathers. All of the new WME-IMG people around him are businesspeople, the kind he used to rail about. And all of them will be the ones who determine the UFC’s future.
On paper, the promotion is riding high. Events are selling, and stars are generating more attention than ever before. But just below the surface, the discontent is simmering.
Anything under that kind of pressure can only have two outcomes: Either the new ownership finds a way to cool off its aggrieved parties, or things move to a boil and, eventually, an explosion.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com