Sara McMann is not a fan of the UFC’s upcoming uniform policy. Not one bit. Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (via Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com), the Olympic silver medalist and former UFC bantamweight title contender blasted the deal as unfair to the women competing in the organization.
“[Men] are getting the majority of that chunk and we’re being left high in dry because we were just recently added,” she said. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t had full careers and these women don’t deserve it. We’re not the same as just a younger guy who just made it to the UFC. We shouldn’t be treated that way.”
Indeed, women competing in the Octagon is a recent phenomenon. The promotion’s first fight involving women came in February 2013 when Ronda Rousey fought Liz Carmouche at UFC 157. Because the UFC’s upcoming sponsorship program is largely based on tenure—with fighters typically receiving between $2,500 and $20,000 per fight relative to how many fights they have under the UFC’s promotional umbrella—it’s impossible for women to have reached the upper tiers of the deal’s pay structure, a fact which has led to McMann speaking to a lawyer.
“The women are just recently added,” she noted. “But that doesn’t mean that these girls haven’t been fighting for years or been in other sports for years and they don’t deserve to be compensated for that.”
According to McMann, 86 percent of women in the UFC will be put into the bottom tier of the Reebok deal, making just $2,500 per fight. The other 14 percent are holdovers from Strikeforce, the organization that introduced women’s MMA to the American mainstream, like Miesha Tate, Alexis Davis and Sarah Kaufman. Tate recently discussed how she stands to take an “80 to 90 percent pay cut” due to the Reebok deal and echoed that it is unfair to women.
It is, of course, easy to see how a tenure-based system could go awry. Carla Esparza, who became the UFC’s inaugural women’s strawweight champion after winning three bouts in The Ultimate Fighter season 20 and has competed in Bellator and Invicta FC, will likely be set to receive just $2,500 in sponsorship money, the same as a UFC newcomer.
Whether McMann moves forward with a case or whether the UFC changes its current plans for distribution of payment will be important stories to watch going forward.
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