(Video courtesy of YouTube/CharlieSpaniard)
UFC welterweight Charlie Brenneman decided to video blog from the Zuffa Fighter Summit the past couple of days to give us mortals a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at this yearly meeting of extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen.
In the clip above UFC president Dana White opines about his bitter nemeses — the much maligned “so called MMA media,” offers suggestions on how to make money after retirement and recommends that his employees embrace social media as a free tool to increase their star power.
“You can continue to make money even when it’s done. My best example is a guy like Chuck Liddell. You know, Chuck Liddell is still famous. People still pay him to come do stuff, whether it’s signings or openings of their business or whatever it is, that guy’s still making a lot of money,” White pointed out. “It’s because he used everything he could. He became big; he became famous…Use social media. You’re going to learn how to do it while you’re here. It’s incredible and it costs you nothing. It doesn’t cost you a dime. It’s free.”
In a message that may or may not have been directed at Nick Diaz, White told fighters that although it isn’t the most exciting part of the job, fulfilling media requirements and PR responsibilities is a requirement of being a UFC fighter, unless the interview is for an outlet that isn’t considered what the promotion considers as being, “real media.”
“Believe me, [doing PR] is part of the deal. You have to do the PR…When we first started this thing… You guys won’t be doing interviews with fucking Hamster Weekly any more,” White explained. “We actually have some real media and when she goes through everything with you today, hopefully you guys will realize it and get it through your head how important it is…”
Hamster Weekly is going to be pissed about this latest development. We feel your pain, HW.
At the end of the video UFC heavyweight Pat Barry shared his thoughts on the most significant news that came out of the three-day event.
“The insurance for the fighters [was the highlight of the summit]. I think that we’ve been needing that since I got into the sport, man. I know like myself, and a lot of other guys [need it]. The top guys in the sport are making top dollars, but when you’re first coming up like I’m still doing now, you’re not getting extraordinary amounts of money. When we get injured outside of the ring — which is where the majority of injuries happen is in practice — that has to come out of pocket. A lot of us don’t have insurance either, so sometimes we have to fight, make a payday and then use that payday to pay off what we had to get taken care of by the doctors, man. So that’s the highlight of the [summit] for me, man. It’s the insurance for fighters outside of fighting. That’s the greatest part of it.”