Sean O’Malley has been complaining about the amount of money he is making for quite some time now, but he understands why the UFC and Dana White don’t want to increase fighter pay.
YouTube star turned professional boxer Jake Paul recently brought a lot of eyeballs to the subject of UFC fighter pay and welfare. ‘The Problem Child’ suggested that he would join MMA’s premier promotion if they changed the way they did business. Primarily, he wanted the minimum UFC fighter pay to be raised from $12,000 to $50,000. Paul also called for the company to offer its fighters long-term health care.
White has since responded to Paul’s challenge but for the most part skipped over the fighter pay stuff, which he attributed to Paul’s “warlock” manager – Nakisa Bidarian.
Despite airing his grievances over fighter pay, O’Malley gets why some people on the UFC roster don’t deserve to earn the figures Paul is pushing for.
“I don’t even blame him,” O’Malley said on his podcast. “It’s like some of these f***ing people have zero following. They’re not making the UFC 100,000 [dollars]. They’re not making the UFC 50,000 [dollars]. They’re not making the UFC any money really. But that’s just from a business perspective. From Dana’s business perspective. I can see that.” (Transcribed by Sportskeeda)
Sean O’Malley Is Set For A Pay Rise
O’Malley recently picked up the biggest win of his career when he TKO’d Raulian Paiva inside one round at UFC 269. At the post-fight press conference, the UFC boss said it’s time for ‘Suga’ to step up his level of competition and that he is prepared to pay the bantamweight prospect to do so.
“When you talk to him, two things: He wants to get paid, and he wants to fight higher-level competition,” White said. “Looks like we’re going to have to pay him, get him some fights.”
Do you agree with Sean O’Malley on the fighter pay issue?