It can be argued that no losing fighter has ever deserved one of UFC’s famous locker-room bonus checks than Fabio Maldonado after his downright terrifying loss to Glover Teixeira at UFC 153.
If this was professional wrestling, we’d say this was the fight that got Glover “over” in the UFC. The brutal asskicking that Teixeira dished out transitioned him from MMA’s best-kept secret to a legitimate light-heavyweight contender, causing fans throughout the world to say “Huh, so that’s what a 10-7 round looks like.”
Yet Fabio Maldonado kept fighting back, almost pulling off one of the most insane comebacks in UFC history as he rocked Teixeira near the end of the first round. Maldonado kept coming back for more until the cageside doctor put an end to the fight after the second round. I’m not going to write something cheesy like “it was a moral victory for Fabio Maldonado,” but I would understand why a person would.
The beating that Fabio Maldonado took wasn’t for nothing – at least not financially. Maldonado revealed on his Facebook page that he recently received one of the UFC’s famed locker-room bonus checks, and it was worth more money than his win bonus would have been. Via MMAWeekly:
It can be argued that no losing fighter has ever deserved one of UFC’s famous locker-room bonus checks than Fabio Maldonado after his downright terrifying loss to Glover Teixeira at UFC 153.
If this was professional wrestling, we’d say this was the fight that got Glover “over” in the UFC. The brutal asskicking that Teixeira dished out transitioned him from MMA’s best-kept secret to a legitimate light-heavyweight contender, causing fans throughout the world to say “Huh, so that’s what a 10-7 round looks like.”
Yet Fabio Maldonado kept fighting back, almost pulling off one of the most insane comebacks in UFC history as he rocked Teixeira near the end of the first round. Maldonado kept coming back for more until the cageside doctor put an end to the fight after the second round. I’m not going to write something cheesy like “it was a moral victory for Fabio Maldonado,” but I would understand why a person would.
The beating that Fabio Maldonado took wasn’t for nothing – at least not financially. Maldonado revealed on his Facebook page that he recently received one of the UFC’s famed locker-room bonus checks, and it was worth more money than his win bonus would have been. Via MMAWeekly:
“Just got a check from the UFC,” he commented in Portuguese, noting it was the fourth time he received a bonus [Author Note: That makes him 4/4 for receiving bonus checks, for those of you keeping score]. “The UFC paid me more than if I had won the fight. Thanks to the Fertitta brothers, Dana White and Joe Silva.”
The money UFC fighters make is also often compared to the headline inducing paydays in the boxing world. White often explains that what people are comparing is apples to oranges, as they’re looking at the miniscule amount of boxers at the top of the heap pulling in tremendous paydays, while those at the bottom are sometimes fighting for $50 or $100 a round.
Maldonado, who fought for years in as a professional boxer (with a 22-0 record), sounds as if he agrees, at least to some degree.
“Fought boxing, never seen it happen before,” he said of the bonus he received, even in a losing effort.
Keep in mind that Fabio Maldonado made $11,000 to show at UFC 153, meaning that the bonus check he just received was almost assuredly worth more than that. That’s pretty generous, and definitely well-deserved. When a fighter is willing to take the long-term brain damage that accompanies a beating like the one Maldonado took for the sake of putting on a memorable fight, he deserves special compensation.
When UFC matchmaker Joe Silva calls you to fight on short notice as an injury replacement, sometimes it’s better to not even answer the phone. That’s the lesson we’ve learned from a contradictory pair of recent firings that seem to define the phrase “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
As confirmed by MMAFighting.com, welterweight contender (and former CagePotato guest-blogger) Rich Attonito has been released by the UFC. Attonito had an official record of 3-2 within the Octagon, and last competed at UFC 140 in December 2011, where he was TKO’d by Jake Hecht. Here’s the sequence of events that led to Rich’s firing, from the MMAFighting report:
When [Pascal] Krauss pulled out of UFC on FUEL TV 5, [Joe] Silva offered Rich Attonito the fight against [Gunnar] Nelson via Attonito’s manager Dan Lambert. Lambert spoke to the American Top Team fighter, who agreed to take the welterweight bout. The next day, Lambert called Silva to tell him Attonito said he would not be able to make the 170-pound weight limit on short notice. Silva then offered him the opportunity to take the fight at a 175-pound catch weight, which both Attonito and Nelson, through his manager and father Haraldur Nelson, agreed to. The next day, Lambert called Silva back again to inform him that Attonito would not be able to make the 175-pound catch weight either. As a result, Silva decided to release Attonito from his contract.
Here’s the deal: When the UFC offers you an opportunity to come in as a replacement fighter, you generally don’t get a day or two to think about it. Attonito’s crime was speaking too soon — agreeing to a fight before he realized that making weight would be impossible. But at the time the fight was offered to him, saying “no” to Joe Silva probably seemed like the bigger sin.
Anyway, Attonito changed his mind and got fired for it. And you probably remember what happened next…
When UFC matchmaker Joe Silva calls you to fight on short notice as an injury replacement, sometimes it’s better to not even answer the phone. That’s the lesson we’ve learned from a contradictory pair of recent firings that seem to define the phrase “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
As confirmed by MMAFighting.com, welterweight contender (and former CagePotato guest-blogger) Rich Attonito has been released by the UFC. Attonito had an official record of 3-2 within the Octagon, and last competed at UFC 140 in December 2011, where he was TKO’d by Jake Hecht. Here’s the sequence of events that led to Rich’s firing, from the MMAFighting report:
When [Pascal] Krauss pulled out of UFC on FUEL TV 5, [Joe] Silva offered Rich Attonito the fight against [Gunnar] Nelson via Attonito’s manager Dan Lambert. Lambert spoke to the American Top Team fighter, who agreed to take the welterweight bout. The next day, Lambert called Silva to tell him Attonito said he would not be able to make the 170-pound weight limit on short notice. Silva then offered him the opportunity to take the fight at a 175-pound catch weight, which both Attonito and Nelson, through his manager and father Haraldur Nelson, agreed to. The next day, Lambert called Silva back again to inform him that Attonito would not be able to make the 175-pound catch weight either. As a result, Silva decided to release Attonito from his contract.
Here’s the deal: When the UFC offers you an opportunity to come in as a replacement fighter, you generally don’t get a day or two to think about it. Attonito’s crime was speaking too soon — agreeing to a fight before he realized that making weight would be impossible. But at the time the fight was offered to him, saying “no” to Joe Silva probably seemed like the bigger sin.
Anyway, Attonito changed his mind and got fired for it. And you probably remember what happened next…
DaMarques Johnson was then offered (and accepted) the fight against Nelson, and as we previously told you, he was swiftly cut by the UFC following his first-round submission loss. We figured it was because he missed the 175-pound catchweight by a full eight pounds, and we weren’t wrong. Here’s what Joe Silva had to say about it:
“I thought it was incredibly unfair to Gunnar Nelson to fight someone that much larger than him,” Silva said. “Johnson told me he could make the weight. He’s not doing me a favor if he missed weight because I could have gotten someone else who would have made the weight. I never pressure anyone to take late notice fights. I got a bunch of guys who want to fight. If one says no, I will find someone else. No problem.”
So in other words, don’t accept a short-notice fight unless you’re 100% certain you can make the weight, at the moment the fight is offered to you. Otherwise, you could be fired if you take the fight, or if you end up not taking the fight. And as Ben Fowlkes points out in his latest MMAJunkie mailbag column: “If the UFC has ‘a bunch of guys who want to fight,’ why was Johnson, whose medical suspension ended less than two weeks before the Nelson fight, No. 2 on the list of possible replacements?…[The UFC] should have known that Johnson – who’d been medically suspended for 45 of the 56 days between his knockout loss to Mike Swick and his submission loss to Nelson – might not have been in tip-top fighting shape just then.”
With so many UFC fighters getting injured lately, Joe Silva has had to scrape the bottom of the matchmaking barrel to find warm bodies. That’s what led him to DaMarques Johnson, who simply would not have been an option under ideal circumstances. The truth is, Johnson was doing Joe Silva a favor by saying “yes” to the Nelson fight. And that favor was repaid with a pink slip. Let that be a message to the UFC fighters who want to improve their standing in the promotion by taking short-notice fights that are against their best interests: Just say no.
If you aren’t familiar with the work of lookoutawhale and Chaplin’s House, do yourself a favor and spend some time getting to know them before you enjoy their latest collaborative masterpiece, “The UFC Bunch,” featuring Dana White, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, Bruce Buffer, Joe Rogan, Chuck Liddell and Joe Silva.
Check out more from the dynamic duo after the jump.
(“Chuck…are you okay? Is he sleeping? Chuck, wake up!!”)
If you aren’t familiar with the work of lookoutawhale and Chaplin’s House, do yourself a favor and spend some time getting to know them before you enjoy their latest collaborative masterpiece, “The UFC Bunch,” featuring Dana White, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, Bruce Buffer, Joe Rogan, Chuck Liddell, Mike Goldberg and Joe Silva.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/notlookoutawhale)
You may recall their last team-up produced the the widely popular “Bisping’s Island“:
Just a friendly reminder that we will have the live stream of today’s UFC 136 weigh-ins from Houston, Texas starting at 5:00 pm ET.
There’s a pretty good chance that at least one fighter is getting shoved during the festivities. Unfortunately we likely won’t hear from Stann or Sonnen since Joe Rogan typically only interviews the main event participants, so we’l have to settle for listening to Maynard say that Frankie has his belt and to Edgar say he’s sick of fighting Gray.
Time for a few friendly wagers in the comment section.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)
Just a friendly reminder that we will have the live stream of today’s UFC 136 weigh-ins from Houston, Texas starting at 5:00 pm ET.
There’s a pretty good chance that at least one fighter is getting shoved during the festivities. Unfortunately we likely won’t hear from Stann or Sonnen since Joe Rogan typically only interviews the main event participants, so we’l have to settle for listening to Maynard say that Frankie has his belt and to Edgar say he’s sick of fighting Gray.
Time for a few friendly wagers in the comment section.
Will Sonnen’s bacne be as prevalent as it was at the UFC 117 weigh-ins?
Panic reigns supreme at UFC headquarters in the aftermath of Anderson Silva’s destruction of the strongest middleweight in the world. Dana White has been asking the same question for hours: NOW who do we put in front of Silva? In a late-night spitballing session, Dana puts his question to his closest friends and confidants, hoping […]
Panic reigns supreme at UFC headquarters in the aftermath of Anderson Silva’s destruction of the strongest middleweight in the world. Dana White has been asking the same question for hours: NOW who do we put in front of Silva?
In a late-night spitballing session, Dana puts his question to his closest friends and confidants, hoping to devise a title defense that would actually be competitive. But while brainstorming can lead to bizarre, innovative ideas, Dana is unprepared for what sleep deprivation and caipirinhas have done to Joe Silva…
Ok, this is totally fake and i made it all up. There, you’ve been warned.
Come on in past the jump (if you dare), and check out the return of Keyboard Warriors. Props to Brandon Stroud over at WithLeather for coming up with a fun concept, but he doesn’t help write any of the jokes — blame those on me.
