Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) veteran, Kevin Lee, is not the first high-profile combatant to suggest a mixed martial arts (MMA) union is in order, and he certainly won’t be the last. But, like the fighters who came before him, he’s not going to be the one to spearhead that sort of career-defining endeavor.
After all, it’s hard for “Motown Phenom” to bitch and moan about his job with UFC when fighting inside the Octagon has changed not only his life, but the lives of his family. And even if the situation is not ideal, he understands that he gives away his right to complain once he signs on the dotted line.
“Honestly, I have no real complaints about it,” said Lee. “I’m signing on the line, I know what I’m signing up for. Anytime I do and I say I’m gonna do something, I always make sure I hold up my end and I’m gonna do it. [The UFC has] afforded me so much to where my life is so much different than I thought it would be. I truly thought that everything would just look different. It provided a better life for my family. It’s just afforded me so much that any negatives on it, I can’t really . . . it’s just like grievances, almost.”
Lee earned $250,000 for his UFC 216 interim title fight and is sort of stuck in the middle.
On one end of the spectrum we have superstars like Jon Jones and Tyron Woodley, who each banked $500,000 at UFC 235, in contrast to up-and-comers like Hannah Cifers and Charles Byrd, who only grabbed $12,000 apiece at the very same event.
“I think it’s inevitable,” Lee told Joe Rogan (via MMA Fighting) about a fighter union. “The UFC is a sports organization but it’s so big now to where it’s damn near public. Once that kind of changes and once they open up the books and people really start to pay attention to it, then maybe somebody on the outside who is way smarter than anyone of us – because we’re fighting, we ain’t really worried about the legalities of it. I’m just signing a contract, I don’t really give a fuck. But once somebody who is smarter kind of takes a look at it and sees what’s going on and how it is, then they’re gonna start up something. They have to. It’s kind of crazy.”
UFC was sold to Endeavor back in 2016 and according to promotion president, Dana White, is now worth upward of $7 billion. How much of that money gets spread among the fighters is unknown, but we do know there is a separate account for hush money.