There’s been a lot of talk lately, especially in light of the heavily reported UFC sale, about fighter pay under the largest mixed martial arts banner today. The world’s premier combat sports organization has received criticism from many current and former employees over working conditions and remuneration, this includes a lawsuit against Zuffa headed b
There’s been a lot of talk lately, especially in light of the heavily reported UFC sale, about fighter pay under the largest mixed martial arts banner today. The world’s premier combat sports organization has received criticism from many current and former employees over working conditions and remuneration, this includes a lawsuit against Zuffa headed b ex-fighters Nate Quarry, Jon Fitch, Cung Le and others. The ongoing effort to have the Muhammad Ali act, designed to help with stomping out corruption and potentially bringing to reality a fighter’s union, is currently being lobbied against by the UFC.
Of course there could be a number of reasons for their stance against the Ali act, and as a privately owned business the UFC is well within their rights to essentially do what they like. Fighters are individually contracted employees, but more and more athletes are beginning to vocalise their feelings about being underpaid and undervalued. This last week alone has seen two high profile complaints, one of which was brutally shot down by UFC president Dana White.
Jun 18, 2016; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Patrick Cote (blue gloves) fights Donald Cerrone (red gloves) in a welterweight bout during UFC Fight Night at TD Place Arena. Mandatory Credit: Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports
After dominating and finishing Patrick Cote during the UFC Fight Night 89 co-main event, Donald Cerrone went on record during the post fight presser by saying ‘according to my pay, I don’t mean sh*t to the UFC.’ The statement was later dismissed by Dana White, who claimed Cerrone was ‘inconsistent’ and needed to ‘win them all’ if he wanted a better rate of pay. ‘Cowboy’ is notorious for fighting anyone, anytime, and has a promotional record of 17-4, has the most ever post-fight bonuses of any UFC fighter and is the fist man to be awarded knockout, performance, submission and fight of the night bonuses.
Another fighter on the UFC Ottawa card, Jo Calderwood, made a big splash in smashing Valerie Letoruneau by TKO. After the vicious win in Canada ‘Jo Jo’ declared she was too broke to afford her next fight camp, and would have to work another job to be able to fund her next training period. Dana White’s response was a little different to Calderwood, as he stated ‘she’d get bonused for that fight.’
With the promotion (reportedly) highly likely to change owners (officially) around the time of UFC 200, massive change could be coming in both the way production is handled, but also how fighters are paid. Right now we have the answers to neither of these intriguing concerns, but White tries to clear up some confusion during this recent interview…
Following what was arguably his finest performance in a dominant third-round TKO over former UFC title challenger Patrick Cote in the co-main event of last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from Ottawa, UFC mainstay and fan favorite Donald Cerrone wasn’t all smiles as one might expect a “Performance of the Night”
Following what was arguably his finest performance in a dominant third-round TKO over former UFC title challenger Patrick Cote in the co-main event of last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from Ottawa, UFC mainstay and fan favorite Donald Cerrone wasn’t all smiles as one might expect a “Performance of the Night” bonus winner to be.
No, “Cowboy” spoke up at the post-fight presser to state that he ‘didn’t mean s***’ to the UFC based on his payscale:
“(The bonuses) all sound nice – according to my pay I don’t mean s*** to the UFC. But we’ll see. (I’m) going to talk to Dana after this and figure that out.”
Fighter pay is obviously a hot topic in MMA right now, but it was thought that Cerrone, a company man if there ever was one who possesses an alarming 17 wins and 12 post-fight bonuses in the UFC, was towards the upper end of UFC athletes with $79,000 to show, $79,000 to win, and an extra $50,000 ending with a $228,000 payday for his win over Cote.
Touching on all current aspects related to the UFC and MMA during the all-new “UFC Unfiltered” podcast with Matt Serra and Jim Norton today (June 21, 2016) UFC president Dana White put things in perspective concerning Cerrone’s pay complaint:
“Now Cerrone at the press conference comes out and says ‘I don’t know if the UFC loves me if you look at my paycheck. OK, now me and Cerrone are as tight as tight can be. There’s a lot of personal stuff with me and Cerrone, too, on the positive side. The kid made over $200,000 on free TV on the co-main event and the gate was $900,000. How much money does Cerrone expect to make on a co-main event?
“The kid looked great. Never held a world title and made over $200 grand, co-main event, $900,000 gate, free TV.”
Put that way, it would seem like Cerrone made out well with over $200,000 for the co-main event of an event that only brought in $900,000 live. But that wasn’t all it was based on, however, as White also pointed out Cerrone’s tendency to choke in big fights as a possible reason for his current pay:
“We’ve talked, me and Cerrone. He absolutely agreed. What he said to me is ‘I was half joking’. I love him. He looked phenomenal.
“I think the thing that’s frustrating, especially for a guy like ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, is he has the personality,” White said. “Everybody loves the kid. His fighting style is (expletive) exactly what I like. It’s right up my alley. Everything I love about a fighter, ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is. And he’s a couple fights away from having that big fight. You’ve got to win them all. Every fight is the most important, and you’ve got to work your way up and you’ve got to win those big fights.
“‘Cowboy’ – again, a guy that I love – hasn’t always taken everything so serious. You can’t be (expletive) rock climbing two days before your fight or wakeboarding the day of your fight. Some of the stuff that this guy does – you want to make that serious, big money, you have to get in the right mindset. The way he looked the other night against Patrick Cote is the way you have to fight when you fight dos Anjos or Diaz or any of the big guys. When you get to that big fight, you have to win.”
While it may sound a bit harsh, it’s also tough to argue with White in a sense, as Cerrone has beaten nearly every less-than-elite competitor he’s faced in the UFC only to fall short to champion Rafael dos Anjos (twice), Nate Diaz, and Anthony Pettis in pivotal and career-changing bouts.
At the end of the day, there’s no animosity between White and Cerrone, but while the exec said he “loves ‘Cowboy,” he’s just not at the Conor McGregor or Ronda Rousey level yet:
“Personally and professionally, I love “Cowboy” Cerrone. This day and age, every fighter on Earth, especially when you look at the money that Conor (McGregor), Ronda (Rousey) and some of these people are making out there, it gets crazy. Everybody wants to make a $1 million.
Following what was arguably his finest performance in a dominant third-round TKO over former UFC title challenger Patrick Cote in the co-main event of last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from Ottawa, UFC mainstay and fan favorite Donald Cerrone wasn’t all smiles as one might expect a “Performance of the Night”
Following what was arguably his finest performance in a dominant third-round TKO over former UFC title challenger Patrick Cote in the co-main event of last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from Ottawa, UFC mainstay and fan favorite Donald Cerrone wasn’t all smiles as one might expect a “Performance of the Night” bonus winner to be.
No, “Cowboy” spoke up at the post-fight presser to state that he ‘didn’t mean s***’ to the UFC based on his payscale:
“(The bonuses) all sound nice – according to my pay I don’t mean s*** to the UFC. But we’ll see. (I’m) going to talk to Dana after this and figure that out.”
Fighter pay is obviously a hot topic in MMA right now, but it was thought that Cerrone, a company man if there ever was one who possesses an alarming 17 wins and 12 post-fight bonuses in the UFC, was towards the upper end of UFC athletes with $79,000 to show, $79,000 to win, and an extra $50,000 ending with a $228,000 payday for his win over Cote.
Touching on all current aspects related to the UFC and MMA during the all-new “UFC Unfiltered” podcast with Matt Serra and Jim Norton today (June 21, 2016) UFC president Dana White put things in perspective concerning Cerrone’s pay complaint:
“Now Cerrone at the press conference comes out and says ‘I don’t know if the UFC loves me if you look at my paycheck. OK, now me and Cerrone are as tight as tight can be. There’s a lot of personal stuff with me and Cerrone, too, on the positive side. The kid made over $200,000 on free TV on the co-main event and the gate was $900,000. How much money does Cerrone expect to make on a co-main event?
“The kid looked great. Never held a world title and made over $200 grand, co-main event, $900,000 gate, free TV.”
Put that way, it would seem like Cerrone made out well with over $200,000 for the co-main event of an event that only brought in $900,000 live. But that wasn’t all it was based on, however, as White also pointed out Cerrone’s tendency to choke in big fights as a possible reason for his current pay:
“We’ve talked, me and Cerrone. He absolutely agreed. What he said to me is ‘I was half joking’. I love him. He looked phenomenal.
“I think the thing that’s frustrating, especially for a guy like ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, is he has the personality,” White said. “Everybody loves the kid. His fighting style is (expletive) exactly what I like. It’s right up my alley. Everything I love about a fighter, ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is. And he’s a couple fights away from having that big fight. You’ve got to win them all. Every fight is the most important, and you’ve got to work your way up and you’ve got to win those big fights.
“‘Cowboy’ – again, a guy that I love – hasn’t always taken everything so serious. You can’t be (expletive) rock climbing two days before your fight or wakeboarding the day of your fight. Some of the stuff that this guy does – you want to make that serious, big money, you have to get in the right mindset. The way he looked the other night against Patrick Cote is the way you have to fight when you fight dos Anjos or Diaz or any of the big guys. When you get to that big fight, you have to win.”
While it may sound a bit harsh, it’s also tough to argue with White in a sense, as Cerrone has beaten nearly every less-than-elite competitor he’s faced in the UFC only to fall short to champion Rafael dos Anjos (twice), Nate Diaz, and Anthony Pettis in pivotal and career-changing bouts.
At the end of the day, there’s no animosity between White and Cerrone, but while the exec said he “loves ‘Cowboy,” he’s just not at the Conor McGregor or Ronda Rousey level yet:
“Personally and professionally, I love “Cowboy” Cerrone. This day and age, every fighter on Earth, especially when you look at the money that Conor (McGregor), Ronda (Rousey) and some of these people are making out there, it gets crazy. Everybody wants to make a $1 million.
Joanne Calderwood scored her biggest-ever UFC win when she finished former title contender Valerie Letourneau with a brutal body kick and spinning backfist in the first-ever UFC women’s flyweight bout at last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from the TD Place Arena in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, but that doesn’t mean she’s automatically
Joanne Calderwood scored her biggest-ever UFC win when she finished former title contender Valerie Letourneau with a brutal body kick and spinning backfist in the first-ever UFC women’s flyweight bout at last weekend’s (Sat., June 18, 2016) UFC Fight Night 89 from the TD Place Arena in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, but that doesn’t mean she’s automatically headed for a lucrative career in MMA.
Fighter pay is an increasingly sensitive subject in the sport of MMA, and it appears that Calderwood’s case is a especially telling example. Despite sitting at No. 12 in the strawweight ranks and sure to move up significantly after defeating previously No. 5-ranked Letourneau, Calderwood posted that she was ‘broke as hell’ after the win and would have to return to another job in order to continue training:
A photo posted by Joanne Calderwood (@badmofo_jojo) on
“Badmofo JoJo” failed to win a post-fight bonus for her thrilling main card stoppage of Letourneau, which was mired in controversy after it appeared that the referee was extremely late in stopping the fight, allowing Letourneau to get blasted with an unnecessary spinning backfist after it was clear she had turned away from the action following a vicious third-round body shot.
It was an entertaining and thrilling start to a main card that turned out to be nothing but exciting, but the light heavyweight brawl between Steve Bosse and Sean O’Connell may have prevented Calderwood and Letourneau from sharing “Fight of the Night.”
Regardless, the growing sentiment is that fighters shouldn’t have to depend on bonuses to continue fighting, especially those ranked in the Top 15 of their divisions, so the UFC will continue to be under the heat to pay fighters better, especially after the highly criticized Reebok deal has sapped their endorsement income.
With profits high and a pending sale in the neighborhood of $4.1 billion on the table, it might be tough to get them to care, however.
But consider this: The sheer fact that McKenzie made it to the UFC and then earned three victories inside the Octagon means that his MMA career was far more successful than the vast majority of fighters who try their hands at this sport. It’s weird to put it in those terms, but Cody McKenzie was an elite fighter, relatively speaking.
McKenzie officially announced his retirement from MMA yesterday with the following tweet…
Then, he sat down for a long, must-read interview with BleacherReport’s Hunter Homistek, in which he described what a miserable, impoverished existence it was to compete in the UFC as a non-star. His words echo those of numerous “low-level” fighters who often lost money trying to compete in the UFC and were treated like average regional-card shmucks forced to scramble for food and lodging. We’ve compiled all the best bits below…
(Fightin’ Guy Fawkes McKenzie was the best McKenzie. / Photo via Getty)
But consider this: The sheer fact that McKenzie made it to the UFC and then earned three victories inside the Octagon means that his MMA career was far more successful than the vast majority of fighters who try their hands at this sport. It’s weird to put it in those terms, but Cody McKenzie was an elite fighter, relatively speaking.
McKenzie officially announced his retirement from MMA yesterday with the following tweet…
Then, he sat down for a long, must-read interview with BleacherReport’s Hunter Homistek, in which he described what a miserable, impoverished existence it was to compete in the UFC as a non-star. His words echo those of numerous “low-level” fighters who often lost money trying to compete in the UFC and were treated like average regional-card shmucks forced to scramble for food and lodging. We’ve compiled all the best bits below…
**********
“I’d compete if the money was there. I got into it not for the money, but at the same time, you hit a certain age and you have to grow up. I want a real house and property and all that, like everybody else. And you can’t have that in the fight world unless you’re a top-10 guy…
All the years I fought for them, I averaged $50,000 a year, and they never paid for medicals, they wouldn’t help out with bringing out cornermen and s–t.
They’d bring out one cornerman, but when you have a whole team that needs to go, at the end of the year, you pretty much made about $10,000 fighting for the UFC after paying for medicals and paying for everything and factoring in the expenses of training and all that s–t. You don’t make s–t, and it’s f—–g b——t. I’m over it…
When I fought in New Jersey, it cost me $4,000 in medicals just to get to the damn fight, and the UFC doesn’t pay for a penny of that. They don’t help out with any medicals, they don’t give a s–t. They’re just a big corporation selling merchandise…
The UFC is the pinnacle of the sport, and unless you’re kissing their ass and f—–g s—–g (UFC President) Dana’s (White’s) d–k, you’re not making any money. I see these chumps in the UFC with 4-5 records or 3-0 records, and I’m like, “Who the f–k are these people?”…
My first three fights with the UFC, they expected me to fight for free while locked in a s—y-ass house. The UFC is a joke to me. They’re a multibillion-dollar company, and you have to sign a three-year contract to get one fight with them? What? What kind of s–t is that?
I paid 40 percent of my purse in New Jersey to fight Leonard Garcia. I paid 40 percent of my purse before I even got to it. Forty percent. And that’s before paying for coaches, paying for everything else, you know?
So there’s just no money in the sport, and I’m to the point in life where I want to grow up, and this is some kid s–t it almost seems like unless you’re a top-tier guy, which I wasn’t born with that athletic ability…
Fighting is becoming a rich kids’ sport. That’s the bottom line. It’s becoming a rich kids’ sport. When I got into it, I could fight and not have to pay $4,000 in medicals. Now, just to do a fight in North America, I have to pay hella money in medicals. It’s a f—–g joke.
They try to watch every little thing we do, and the bottom line is that it’s for rich kids now. If you have the money to pay for all the supplements and all the s–t to make you bigger, faster, stronger, then you’re going to do good. But if you’re just a martial artist anymore, you’re done…
When I went into The Ultimate Fighter house, I was like $23,000 in debt. I remember in The Ultimate Fighter they had that coaches’ challenge where they were giving the two rich coaches $10,000 to hit some baseballs, and they were paying all the fighters $1,500.
And most of the fighters were stoked on it! They’re like, “Oh my god! We’re going to win $1,500!”I’m like, you guys are scrubs! I come from Alaska, where $1,500 doesn’t get you through a week. It’s all about where you’re from.
I’ve always made good money in Alaska and my career. I commercial fish, but I’m to the point where I gotta go get a job and start building a real life…
All these girls coming into the UFC and s–t with no records, and even the guys. I watched two 3-0 guys fight each other on TV the other day. I’m like, “Why the f–k am I watching two 3-0 guys fighting in the UFC? They’re f—–g 3-0. That’s not even a record.”
Or this CM Punk guy. It’s all politics, and I’m just sick of it. I know I can fight. I’ll beat CM Punk’s f—–g ass, but nobody cares because he’s famous and rich, and that’s what people want to see, this guy.
And I don’t have anything against him personally, but it’s just the politics of it…
Yeah, I heard that guy talking. He’s a f—–g joke. He’s like six months out and he’s like, “I’m really nervous.” I’m like, come on, you p—y. You’re nervous and you’re six months out? I don’t get nervous until they close that cage door. That’s when I get nervous. You better shake that nerves s–t off or you’re going to freeze in there, you big f—–g girl.
I don’t even know why that guy’s doing it. I kind of do, like a lot of guys try to do it, but he’ll do it once and quit. It’s not a fun thing, fighting people. People think it’s so great, but they’ve never done it. Those people have never f—–g done it. Fighting’s not fun, you know?
The training is fun. The martial arts, learning the martial arts is fun. But when it comes fight night, nobody has fun with the fight. No, it’s nerve-wracking as f–k. You’re getting your f—–g head punched in and your body kicked to s–t. It’s not fun.
But the UFC’s a joke to me, anymore. This WMMA (women’s MMA), I watched some girl fight the other day. She was 4-5, she had a losing record, but she was ranked No. 13 in the world. I was like, “Oh my god, are you kidding me?” I won like 28 in a row, amateur and pro, before I even got a chance, then they made me fight for free in the TUF house, you know?
A bunch of dumb fans are like, “Those aren’t real fights.” Oh, they’re not? They felt like real fights…
Like I said, $50,000 a year is what I averaged [in the UFC], and that’s before expenses. After expenses, I’m averaging about $10,000 a year. That’s s–t money when you’re traveling, you’re on the road, you have to eat out.
I remember when they put me up at the MGM to fight Chad Mendes, I was broke as a joke. I had to jog six miles off the strip just to find a cheap place to eat. I couldn’t eat anywhere on the strip because I didn’t have any f—–g money, and I’m fighting the No. 2-ranked guy in the world. It’s a f—–g joke…
I remember I asked for a hotel room once because I brought my full team. That was the last time I ever brought a full team with me. They always wanted three people in my corner to look professional, you know?
So I finally brought a full team to one of my fights, and one of my cornermen was snoring and sleepwalking and s–t and keeping me up all night, so I asked the UFC for another room. It was like $500 for a room at this place we were staying. I couldn’t afford another room. But they wouldn’t get me another room.
They said, “No. Look, we can’t get you another hotel room.” I’m like, “I’m not getting any f—–g sleep.” It’s like, thanks a lot, d–k heads. You guys are a multibillion-dollar corporation, and you can’t afford another hotel room when you’re already renting the whole hotel out probably?
I got story after story like that. I always felt I was mistreated in the UFC. They take care of certain guys, and they take care of their guys who will kiss their ass and b–w them, but that’s not me. …I never respected Dana White, and I still don’t. I think he’s a greedy a—–e, and I’m glad they’re getting sued…
At this point, I don’t even care. I’m out of the UFC, and I’m not going to see a penny of it. At the end of the day, I’m sure if a bunch of lawyers sue the UFC, it’s going to be a lot of lawyers who get richer and not a bunch of fighters, you know?
Fighters never come up in my opinion. There will be one or two of them, maybe, and that inspires the rest of them, but at the end of the day, fighters don’t come up. And I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but that’s just how it is.
I haven’t seen many fighters get rich, and I’ve been in the game for a very long time. Most of them just struggle, and they all say the same thing, they all do it because they love it. They do it for the passion of the sport. It’s too bad to me when there is millions and billions of dollars floating around. It’s ridiculous how much money is flowing in, but it’s not going to the right people…
I know plenty of fighters who are way better than the guys in [the UFC], but they’re ugly, you know? The bottom line is the UFC is about beauty. If you look good and if you’re a pretty boy or a pretty girl, you’re going to make a lot more. It’s show business. It’s not the fight game. It’s show business…
I respect all the fighters tremendously, even the ones who suck, even the ones who are fighting on national television with s–t records. I still respect them more than the people running the shows who are ripping the fighters off, you know? The athletes, I respect every fighter, no matter what I say about fighters. I even respect this CM Punk who’s never had to go to the very top. I respect him for wanting to do it, for stepping up and fighting somebody. I think he’s a putz for going to the No. 1 organization without even doing any work to get there, but at the end of the day, I still respect him for wanting to try a fight.
I look back and I’ll always appreciate all the athletes who helped me out, like the Diaz brothers and people like that. They’d let me come stay at their houses and learn good martial arts. I was just some Opie from the country, and they’d let me stay with them and learn good s–t. I respect all those guys. At the end of the day, I had a lot of good times, but I’m done chasing this f—–g dream. I’m to the point where it’s not worth it to get knocked out for pennies.“
After almost every UFC event, the UFC will hold a post-fight press conference. One of the first things mentioned at these get-togethers are the winners of the Fight Night Bonuses. These $50,000 pay-bumps are (usually) handed out to four fighters per event: Two combatants take home Performance of the Night awards, and the individuals that were deemed to have the best fight on the card take home Fight of the Night.
Performance bonuses are a nice little perk that the UFC hands out. However, much like that fuzzy block of cheese in the back of the refrigerator, they may have reached their expiration date.
On a recent edition of the Co-Main Event Podcast, host Chad Dundas suggested that the UFC do away with Fight Night bonuses, and instead use those funds to provide a monthly stipend to every fighter on the UFC roster. Not only is this a good idea, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s the right time for the UFC to do it.
The last time a proposal such as this was floated, it was UFC president Dana White that offered up the suggestion. Ignoring the fact that the majority of the 500 plus fighters on the UFC roster are underpaid as professional athletes, White puffed out his chest, and focused on “the lower level guys,” telling the Las Vegas Sun, “(Expletive) yeah, it could happen (doing away with Fight Night bonuses). That’s what I’m thinking about doing. All the (expletive) lower-level guys think they need their money boosted. Everyone thinks it’s not enough money, so that’s easy to do.”
It was not surprising that many UFC fighters balked at the idea as presented by the bombastic UFC chieftain, and White gladly returned to the status quo.
It was a predictable outcome because it pitted UFC newcomers against long tenured and established fighters. White used a basic dirty management style when he floated the idea, pitting the two factions against each other. Since the UFC veterans outnumber the promotional newbies it was a foregone conclusion that the idea would fail to gain traction.
(Would veteran bonus-grabbers like Joe Lauzon [right] give up their extra cash to help the little guy? / Photo via Getty)
After almost every UFC event, the UFC will hold a post-fight press conference. One of the first things mentioned at these get-togethers are the winners of the Fight Night Bonuses. These $50,000 pay-bumps are (usually) handed out to four fighters per event: Two combatants take home Performance of the Night awards, and the individuals that were deemed to have the best fight on the card take home Fight of the Night.
Performance bonuses are a nice little perk that the UFC hands out. However, much like that fuzzy block of cheese in the back of the refrigerator, they may have reached their expiration date.
On a recent edition of the Co-Main Event Podcast, host Chad Dundas suggested that the UFC do away with Fight Night bonuses, and instead use those funds to provide a monthly stipend to every fighter on the UFC roster. Not only is this a good idea, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s the right time for the UFC to do it.
The last time a proposal such as this was floated, it was UFC president Dana White that offered up the suggestion. Ignoring the fact that the majority of the 500 plus fighters on the UFC roster are underpaid as professional athletes, White puffed out his chest, and focused on “the lower level guys,” telling the Las Vegas Sun, “(Expletive) yeah, it could happen (doing away with Fight Night bonuses). That’s what I’m thinking about doing. All the (expletive) lower-level guys think they need their money boosted. Everyone thinks it’s not enough money, so that’s easy to do.”
It was not surprising that many UFC fighters balked at the idea as presented by the bombastic UFC chieftain, and White gladly returned to the status quo.
It was a predictable outcome because it pitted UFC newcomers against long tenured and established fighters. White used a basic dirty management style when he floated the idea, pitting the two factions against each other. Since the UFC veterans outnumber the promotional newbies it was a foregone conclusion that the idea would fail to gain traction.
Dundas’s idea, unlike White’s, shares the wealth across the entire roster, a much easier sell.
Doing the math on the 47 fight cards the UFC scheduled for 2014, the Fight Night bonus budget is a healthy $9.4 million. If you divide that equally across the approximately 500 fighters on the UFC roster, that equals almost $19,000 per fighter over the course of a year. The salary is the equivalent of a $9 an hour full-time job. Not great, but it’s better than nothing, and it would be guaranteed income as long as the fighter remained an active part of the UFC roster.
If you make that a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly paycheck, it becomes even more attractive for the fighters. That stipend would help cover some of the expenses a full time professional mixed martial artist incurs.
If you think those expenses are insubstantial, I point you to the comments of John Cholish and Tim Kennedy, who both broke down the huge costs associated with being a professional fighter. For Cholish, a fight night purse of $8,000 amounted to an estimated loss of $6,000 for the fight he broke down. Meanwhile, Kennedy revealed that approximately 59 percent of his pre-tax fight earnings are earmarked for somewhere other than his bank account. A monthly stipend, generated by the Fight Night bonuses that benefit a lucky and arbitrarily chosen few, would clearly benefit each and every fighter on the UFC roster.
As an added bonus of this stipend, fighters would not be forced to accept the crumbs offered by some sponsors. In fact, if fighters weren’t so desperate for any amount of sponsorship money they could be pickier about the sponsors they represent, and the cost of sponsorship may actually rise over time.
The much discussed, but never publically disclosed locker room bonuses would remain in effect in this scenario. Well, that is to say it would remain in effect barring any vindictive moves from the UFC.
There’s no doubt that some fighters will still balk at this idea; Joe Lauzon and Donald Cerrone immediately come to mind. However, the fact is that sometimes the individual has to take a small hit to serve the greater good. It may be a tough pill to swallow for some, but it’s a pill that will serve the sport and those who are trying to make living inside the Octagon in the present, as well as the future.
