Israel Adesanya raised a decent point – if Robert Whittaker doesn’t get PPV points since he didn’t fight, should the new headliners get them instead?
24 hours out of UFC 234, Israel Adesanya thought he was competing in the co-main event of the Melbourne card. UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker was going to make the big money in the headliner, considering he has pay-per-view points in his contract, as most champions do.
Then just like that, Whittaker’s fight with Kelvin Gastelum was off because of a hernia. Adesanya’s bout with Anderson Silva was on top now.
So after Adesanya’s big win, he showed up at the post-fight press conference and had a pretty valid financial question – if Whittaker didn’t fight, who gets that money? Does the UFC keep it?
“The pay-per-view points, where do they go? What happens to them? I’m just wondering. Maybe I’ll have to sit down with Dana and make him talk because that’s a lot of money being left on the table and it stays in the hands of the dealer when I’ve done my bit. I showed up to work. Unfortunately, it was out of Rob’s hand. It wasn’t in his control.
“The controller was in Player One’s hands. I showed up to work today. I clocked in. I came early to watch them do battle and I stayed late so I can do all this stuff, as well.”
…
“I’m working my ass off. I feel like, man, I don’t know what the buyrates are because it wasn’t really my main event. It wasn’t really my show. They put me in the regular hotel. I didn’t get the main event suite either. But the pay-per-view points I’m looking like, what happens to them? Maybe me and Anderson can split those because we got ‘Fight of the Night’ and that’s a lot of money being left on the table. We’ll see what happens with that.”
Adesanya (16-0, 5-0 UFC) has apparently earned a 185-pound title shot with his decision win over Silva. With Whittaker’s health up in the air right now, there are a lot of possibilities open in the division.