Do you think UFC pay is stopping top athletes to become MMA fighters?

rjmbrd said:
You get brain damage as a NFL athlete, in addition to overall potential for grave bodily injury. The NFL has tens of thousands of willing participants who want in but cannot make the cut.

The reason there are tens of thousands of willing participants for the NFL, at all times, where they have a high chance of brain damage and/or bodily harm, is because the pay is high.

I cannot believe I am typing out an explanation of "risk vs reward."

UFC pay is absolutely atrocious. Of course you are not attracting suitably young, suitably athletic young men at 12k. That only attracts people with no other options.
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Fight sports are different. There's massive rewards available at the top of heavyweight boxing but it doesn't attract many a level athletes.
 
Boxing has way more competition and requires a lot of activity. How much do you think Fury was paid in his tenth or fifteenth boxing fight?
 
El Fernas said:
MMA doesnt seem to have the money put into it, but do other combat sports have? Kickboxing guys are moving to MMA cause it seems the money (for them) its there, if MMA or Top kickboxing guys would had cut it in boxing they would be boxers, Muay Thay fighters are crazy good strikers, but im SURE the money isnt there either, so MMA as a whole is probably the 2nd best paid mainstream sport, is it unforgiving and not exactly the best career to have? Absolutely, but so do are those other combat sports if you dont make it, if you make it in boxing there is still the chance you dont get the huge purses, in MMA its the same, but the UFC gives the idea that if you made it to the UFC you are elite and should be paid elite level money, but both satements are false, just being in the UFC means shit in skills and pay, they have to fill so many cards that the level is quite wide, they NEED prelim level fighters, those cant make 100k a fight, just like prelim level boxers wont make 100k either.

Not defending UFC/MMA pay, but in the mid range the other sports are probably worst, boxing is great at the higher end tho, the stars get paid while stars in MMA make a fraction of what they would get in a boxing PPV, that probably needs to change.
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Yeah, I'm not so sure about the comparisons. I don't have knowledge of what they make directly, but the best kickboxers in their prime don't go to the UFC; those are lesser guys or fighters out of their prime. And they would have to get to the top level before they actually made any money like Alex, which is far from a given. I think if the midrange wasn't better in boxing we would actually see some real boxers in MMA (like more than a few). What is certain is that current top 10 contenders make way more in boxing; those are nonexistent in the UFC.
 
rjmbrd said:
You get brain damage as a NFL athlete, in addition to overall potential for grave bodily injury. The NFL has tens of thousands of willing participants who want in but cannot make the cut.

The reason there are tens of thousands of willing participants for the NFL, at all times, where they have a high chance of brain damage and/or bodily harm, is because the pay is high.

I cannot believe I am typing out an explanation of "risk vs reward."

UFC pay is absolutely atrocious. Of course you are not attracting suitably young, suitably athletic young men at 12k. That only attracts people with no other options.
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There's also the fact that everyone grows up playing Football and they can play it at school for free so there's a lot lower barrier to entry than having to go out of your way to join an MMA gym in your free time and pay the expensive monthly fees to get punched in the face and then train for enough years to be good enough to go amateur.
 
cmw43 said:
There's also the fact that everyone grows up playing Football and they can play it at school for free so there's a lot lower barrier to entry than having to go out of your way to join an MMA gym in your free time and pay the expensive monthly fees to get punched in the face and then train for enough years to be good enough to go amateur.
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Division I All-American wrestlers are ready to go amateur virtually immediately. Forget am, have you seen regional professional MMA?

The reason suitably young, suitably athletic young men with an elite grappling background don't enter MMA is the pay is 12k to get your head punched in at the highest level of the sport.

Only someone with no options follows a path to MMA.
 
Bret 'The Hitman' Hart said:
You're a 20yo elite athlete? No way you'll want to become one of Dana White's slaves and get punched in the face for $10,000 per fight. You'll try your luck in another, less dangerous sport that pays more first.

No matter how much we love MMA, the UFC is still a bush league sport under DW.
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How does this even work, though?

If you're an elite talent at a sport, you're an elite talent at a sport.

You're not gonna get a really great soccer player thinking "oh, maybe ditch this pathway and join MMA" even if UFC paid huge money.

If you're in an academy set up, you've already chosen your career path.

It's only wash outs that switch sports.

That's not really anything to do with money?
 
Siver! said:
How does this even work, though?

If you're an elite talent at a sport, you're an elite talent at a sport.

You're not gonna get a really great soccer player thinking "oh, maybe ditch this pathway and join MMA" even if UFC paid huge money.

If you're in an academy set up, you've already chosen your career path.

It's only wash outs that switch sports.

That's not really anything to do with money?
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I think it's more like you're ending your wrestling career or washed out of the NFL and you're looking over at mma. How many of those types of guys are we going to continue to see enter mma, when it's known that pay is very low outside a handful of people. And the chances of taking life altering damage are very high.
 
doggo said:
It is a factor for sure yes but I don't see why they would prefer swapping their ball games for getting their limbs torn off by some sweaty cunt with a criminal record.
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Don't forget banging cheerleaders in college, and a free degree.
 
I’m happy with the level of athletes. I’d rather see fighters that don’t mind getting punched in the face for the joy of fighting than someone that’s only there to make millions.
 
AdamWarlock said:
Seem like it's such a thankless sport.
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The simple, and sad, fact is that boxing only pays significantly more than MMA if you're a 'star.'

A 'draw' for ticket sales, PPV buys, ratings for your TV interviews, views on Social Media & YouTube.

Otherwise, there's not many millionaire boxers out there that don't draw attention, and there's several examples of the equivalent of Might Mouse Demetrius Johnson who are longtime champions and a P4P great... yet they can't draw flies although they have multiple championship across multiple weightclasses.

Now once a fighter becomes a draw in boxing, they certainly make far more money in comparison to MMA draws, but its a question of HOW do fighters become draws, and there's no set formula.
 
rjmbrd said:
Division I All-American wrestlers are ready to go amateur virtually immediately. Forget am, have you seen regional professional MMA?

The reason suitably young, suitably athletic young men with an elite grappling background don't enter MMA is the pay is 12k to get your head punched in at the highest level of the sport.

Only someone with no options follows a path to MMA.
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Plenty of them do enter MMA. There's many D1 wrestlers on the regionals right now. I agree fighters should be paid more but I think this world you have in your head of all D1 wrestlers converting to MMA rather than using their degrees to get regular joba after college is fantasy.
 
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It probably has some affect, but I think the "You might give up full mount and then have your face elbowed into a concave shape before the ref can intervene" factor is what prevents most high level athletes from going into MMA.

Jarl
 
Siver! said:
How does this even work, though?

If you're an elite talent at a sport, you're an elite talent at a sport.

You're not gonna get a really great soccer player thinking "oh, maybe ditch this pathway and join MMA" even if UFC paid huge money.

If you're in an academy set up, you've already chosen your career path.

It's only wash outs that switch sports.

That's not really anything to do with money?
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Not all good Baseball players will be good Football players obviously, but it happened many times in history that a young elite athlete excelled at 2 or even 3 sports and had to pick.

A few examples:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/best-multi-sport-athletes
https://www.history.com/news/multi-sport-athletes-feats-careers

And these days young elite athletes practicing a martial art or boxing on the side to stay in shape (or just because they like it) aren't something unusual like it probably was in the 90s.
If they can play pro-hockey, pro-football or pro-baseball and earn millions, I doubt they'll be tempted to go fight for Uncle Dana in the UFC and get punched in the face, for 10,000$ and a hot-dog brander per fight for who knows how long.

I don't expect an olympic swimmer to become a MMA champion, but I have no doubt that the UFC is losing many young talents to the NFL in particular (more money right off the bat), and boxing (way bigger potential money if everything goes to plan)
 
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Ngannou and Gane are both amazing athletes. However...

Ngannou came to MMA because 1) he couldn't do football or most anything else as he was too old and 2) he still wanted to do boxing. He was convinced by Lopez to try MMA and Lopez found him by pure luck.

Gane was doing Muay Thai for fun because his friend convinced him, and when he lost his salesman job he also was scouted by Lopez, who now I think can talk better than he can coach. He also cited he wished his dad had been tougher on him when he decided to quit football and basketball, and he knew MMA was his last chance at an athletic career.

Neither chose MMA. Both were thrust into it by circumstance.
 
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Some people just cant ever imagine being completley dominated and having the shits beat out of them by another man in front of millions,and it dont matter how much money it pays.
 
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