I don't for a second believe One offered 20 million plus you are seemingly taking Chatri at his word without question. You can absolutely believe the PFL deal will potentially satisfy several of Frank's issues but match or improve upon the UFCs monetarily? Nope.
I am absolutely not taking Chatri at his word! That's why I put it in quotes every time I say it. I don't know what "20m guaranteed" means once you remove the quotes. I'm working with the info I do know. I know Francis was offered "20m guaranteed" by Chatri but I don't know if that's a REAL WORLD 10m, 12m, or what. No clue, just to be clear.
Do I believe that PFL can offer him more than the UFC's 12m? Yes. Do I believe they did? I don't know. But I know that whatever they offered was so good that Francis went to hear out Chatri and his "20m guaranteed" offer only out of courtesy and said he basically started off the meeting by warning that he wasn't likely to be swayed. And he wasn't.
So I don't claim to know ANY numbers and I want to be clear about that. But I know that Francis left the UFC for reasons that are NOT monetary, according to him. You and I agree that those non-monetary reasons will likely be addressed far better under this alleged PFL deal than under UFC. So if that's why he left and that improves considerably, this is a win for him.
To also score more $ would be a double win. I don't know if he did or didn't. I expect he probably did, yes. But I have no way of knowing. What I do know is man is winning by addressing his bigger concerns and getting his soul out from under a man he didn't love working with. It's his life and this is what he wanted. And he got it. So man is winning by achieving more and more of his goals.
He wanted to be UFC champ and he got that. Then he wanted to box and he can keep working on that but he's getting the contractual right to do that - that's a HUGE step closer. Then he wanted to part ways with the UFC and he got that - WITH them having to make an offer they must have hated to make to him after all that time - an offer he simply refused. These are all wins to me.
There are VERY few fighters who have gotten these three things. Conor is the only man who got the first 2, and he did that with the UFC's help and good for him. If Francis gets a boxing fight he will be the first UFC champ to ever do that on his own terms and steam, and good for him.
I also think it's at least likely that he gets a bump in pay and I think that's a win-win for him.
To me, this is a masterclass in going for what you want and achieving at a high rate. To me, this is what winning looks like if you're Francis and want what he wants.
Just keep in mind what we all said when he snubbed his nose at the UFC - he will fail to achieve his goals and will REGRET leaving what he left.
Let's let time do the talking. I'm pretty sure he already has the opposite of regret. But let's let time do the talking.
I think the "losing" the fans are speaking of is factual and real - but it's entirely misplaced. I think we lack the self-awareness or self-honesty to admit that the losing is only ours. We lose some matchups we wanted to see in the UFC so we project that loss onto Francis so we don't have to admit we're losing. Is normal for humans. We do this shit all day.
