Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Cub Swanson would like to see the UFC share more of its revenue with their fighters.
Recently the likes of Jorge Masvidal and Jon Jones have protested for a better revenue share from the UFC, and despite having fewer bad words to say about the promotion, Cub Swanson thinks the same.
Swanson (26-11) has been fighting in the UFC since the promotion merged with WEC in 2011. The featherweight veteran has fought close to twenty times for the UFC and defeated Kron Gracie in his last fight.
Talking recently to MMA Junkie, Swanson praised the UFC for their treatment of him during his nine years in the promotion.
“The UFC does really generous things,” Swanson said. “They paid for my surgery. They took care of everything. They made sure I went to a great doctor, so I’m not going to bash them. They’ve been amazing to me.”
Whilst thankful to the UFC, Swanson couldn’t admit that all is fine and well when it comes to fighter pay. With most other sports splitting their revenue 50/50 with its athletes, the UFC reportedly only shares about 18%, with their own targets showing they wanted to keep it at 17% for years.
Swanson said working up to 25 or 30 percent would be easily accomplished.
“I saw Masvidal speak up against the fighter pay that he’d like to get paid more, which, you know, everybody would. So all I really want to say on that is that, you know, in other professional sports there’s a big split, 50-50 roughly, depending on the sport and everything. And obviously they worked their way up to that, so I think if the UFC is profiting this much, I think we can come to terms on like a 25 percent, 30 percent and work our way up, and I think that’s beyond reasonable.”
Swanson hasn’t fought for the whole of 2020 after tearing his ACL in a grappling match against Jake Shields last December.