So… Are Fighter Pay Discussions Dead Now?

[Blanqa Blanqua]

I don't know man. Keeping them broke will keep them hungry for fights? Savage for cash and KO's?

It does seem like once the get money they act like divas, on the most part. That's my beef. Just sign and fucking fight more often FFS

 

[moreorless87]

The UFC has clamped down a lot on employ.......sorry "independent contractors" going "off message" in recent years.

 

[FreddieRoachsVoice]

MMA has always been an absolutely horrible career choice for someone looking to make money... especially since the Reebok deal when fighters couldn't even get their own sponsors.

There is an obvious reason why we rarely see top prospects from the US anymore. Did wrestling suddenly become ineffective at beating strikers after YEARS of domination in the sport... or... did college wrestlers take their degrees and use them for more stable/lucrative careers?

I am happy for people from developing countries to get opportunities to make "good money" but I honestly feel that they are being exploited by a company who is not willing to schill out even a fraction of the money that other mainstream athletes are making. Considering you get no health care and sustain WAY more damage than in other sports... yeah... not a great plan to have a career where you'll likely be broke/brain damaged by your mid 40s.

MMA fans evidently will watch whatever garbage cards the UFC shits out so this is unlikely to change in the future as long as chumps are willing to get their brains smashed in for nickels but it's still laughable to see die hards buy into the UFC hype of the "current crop of fighters being the best ever" and the "sport evolving every year" when there are more one-dimensional fighters ranked in the top 10 now than there was 15 years ago. Bad fighter pay = low quality recruitment = low quality fights. It's really not that complicated

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

90% of HW fights look like bum fights now due to the bottom barrel of athletic talent.

They were getting paid much less back when HW was considered good.

I think the issue is (up until recently anyway) it being harder to get away with juicing + fighters play the weight cutting game much harder now so you get a bunch of would be HWs fighting at 205 instead.

 

[barillas]

Thinly veiled anti Trump thread.

Go cry about politics on reddit

Sherdog is full of liberals

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

There is an obvious reason why we rarely see top prospects from the US anymore.

Yeah, the sport got popular internationally so like 4 countries stopped accounting for about 90% of the entire talent pool.

Did wrestling suddenly become ineffective at beating strikers after YEARS of domination in the sport

Everyone else learned to wrestle well enough to nullify it.

... or... did college wrestlers take their degrees and use them for more stable/lucrative careers?

Why were they not doing that in the 90s and 00s when dudes were getting 5k/5k?

 

[Clark Rogers]

They've all got Jones vs Stipe to whine about right now, once it's over we will be back to the regularly scheduled bitching about other people's bank accounts programming.

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

Sherdog is full of liberals

You mean progs. Democrats abandoned liberalism as soon as Norvegian Social Democrat Obama won.

 

[uled]

Remember when we used to hear about fighter pay issues all the time? It felt like every other week someone was calling out Dana and the UFC over low pay. But lately… nothing but crickets. Is this because the lawsuit against the UFC fizzled out? Or are people just tired of talking about it, now that it seems like a change may never come?


With Trump back in office, it feels like any legal push for change—like expanding the Ali Act to MMA—is even less likely. The UFC has such a strong grip on the sport and keeps fighters under tight contracts, so it’s like they’ve just accepted the way things are. But that raises a big question for us as fans: are we okay with this? Is everyone just over it, or do we still think fighter pay needs to improve?

It depends how you see this

If i was a heavyweight striker form New Zealand who made 900 000$ on my last bout on the contract. The last thing i would do is trying to sue UFC for a loss three years before i made 900 000$

 

[FreddieRoachsVoice]

Yeah, the sport got popular internationally so like 4 countries stopped accounting for about 90% of the entire talent pool.



Everyone else learned to wrestle well enough to nullify it.



Why were they not doing that in the 90s and 00s when dudes were getting 5k/5k?

LOL so why are these one dimensional former soviet state fighters suddenly decimating all of these strikers with grappling? Sure doesn't look like these strikers have magically developed excellent takedown defense. Grappler beats striker 9/10 times... but why are all of the grapplers nearly exclusively coming from developing countries where the small UFC purses go much further?

The MMA pioneers fought for the love of fighting... they were not making good money as you stated. However, when the sport blew up in popularity in the mid 2000s, fighters started making pretty decent money... particularly from sponsorship opportunities and cuts from PPV buys. The opportunity at big money + fame + competition = attractive to young athletes so MMA attracted a lot of high level talent... much higher than the pioneer days and much higher quality than now.

However, the UFC eventually became big enough that they virtually stopped turning fighters into stars and just used the UFC Brand itself as the main draw (after getting burned by a lot of their stars jumping ship elsewhere/being difficult to control). This process was gradual but evidently was successful as they can now have a card nearly every weekend somewhere in the world with absolute piss poor talent on it and fans will still inexplicably watch/buy tickets. With extremely restrictive contracts and no chance at drawing your own sponsorships, why take on the risk of becoming a fighter if you come from an expensive country?

That's not to say that there isn't some great talent from around the world but MMA is an expensive sport to train for that has a very low likelyhood of making a good living at. We are not seeing the best of the best when even guys in the top promotion have to have full time jobs in order to support themselves. As I stated before, poor fighter pay leads to poor quality talent. Why get punched in the face for a living when you have a college degree? Well, many aren't now.

 

[CatchtheseHands]

You can only talk about the topic saying the same talking points for so long until you get tired. Not to mention Sherdoggers care more about UFC fighter pay problems than UFC fighters do lol. Nothing will change until fighters on the roster do more. It's also their responsibility to change shit. Not mine or anyone else on here.

 

[Blanqa Blanqua]

MMA has always been an absolutely horrible career choice for someone looking to make money... especially since the Reebok deal when fighters couldn't even get their own sponsors.

There is an obvious reason why we rarely see top prospects from the US anymore. Did wrestling suddenly become ineffective at beating strikers after YEARS of domination in the sport... or... did college wrestlers take their degrees and use them for more stable/lucrative careers?

I am happy for people from developing countries to get opportunities to make "good money" but I honestly feel that they are being exploited by a company who is not willing to schill out even a fraction of the money that other mainstream athletes are making. Considering you get no health care and sustain WAY more damage than in other sports... yeah... not a great plan to have a career where you'll likely be broke/brain damaged by your mid 40s.

MMA fans evidently will watch whatever garbage cards the UFC shits out so this is unlikely to change in the future as long as chumps are willing to get their brains smashed in for nickels but it's still laughable to see die hards buy into the UFC hype of the "current crop of fighters being the best ever" and the "sport evolving every year" when there are more one-dimensional fighters ranked in the top 10 now than there was 15 years ago. Bad fighter pay = low quality recruitment = low quality fights. It's really not that complicated

Guys would make MUCH more from their sponsors than their ‘wage’ per bout.

Reebok deal was and did really fuck them over.

I wish I had an ‘easy’ alternative to UFC.

Anyways, great post man.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

LOL so why are these one dimensional former soviet state fighters suddenly decimating all of these strikers with grappling? Sure doesn't look like these strikers have magically developed excellent takedown defense. Grappler beats striker 9/10 times... but why are all of the grapplers nearly exclusively coming from developing countries where the small UFC purses go much further?

Has it occurred to you that maybe these soviet state dudes are just better than the tattooed ex-college wrestler Tylers, Logans, Codys, Todds, Joshs and Drews from Arkansas and Nebraska that made up the majority of the UFCs roster 20 years ago when there was less than 500 pro fighters on the planet? Many of these soviet wrestler types actually have good striking too.

But yeah sure, Americans just decided they didnt wanna do MMA anymore once the pay increased massively, lol. Funny how theres tons of them getting paid less in BKFC though.

 

[burningspear]

We know their strategy has always been keeping the collective fighter pay percentage under 20% of profits from each event. Its a diabolical deal in terms of cash but the exposure man

 

[Blanqa Blanqua]

Funny how theres tons of them getting paid less in BKFC though.

Maybe the UFC wants this, so that they cannot be held culpable for their CTE further down the line.

 

[ejazahmednit]

Bellator died and PFL didn't do much to further the envelope.
So there's no place for people to point and say XYZ org pays more

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

Has it occurred to you that maybe these soviet state dudes are just better than the tattooed ex-college wrestler Tylers, Logans, Codys, Todds, Joshs and Drews from Arkansas and Nebraska that made up the majority of the UFCs roster 20 years ago when there was less than 500 pro fighters on the planet? Many of these soviet wrestler types actually have good striking too.

But yeah sure, Americans just decided they didnt wanna do MMA anymore once the pay increased massively, lol. Funny how theres tons of them getting paid less in BKFC though.

that's not it either. why isn't there any American grappler at HW besides Curtis Blaydes? there's no good Soviet state guys in that division who are good grapplers. the best grapplers there are British and a Brazilian 1 trick.

social media blew up in the time frame you're talking about, means easier jobs for better pay. not just being a streamer/influencer either. regular ass jobs are better pay even now compared to the vast majority of MMA fighters. the money is only in being the best or a top draw. for how good all these Soviet guys are supposed to be, some no name garbage man is making bank compared to 90% of them. Khabib's guys and Khamzat are the only ones making good money. all the other guys aren't getting paid shit, and it's worse outside of UFC just look at Mokaev begging to come back.

even the UFC is like this. they rather pay a mediocre exciting fighter, than pay an elite boring one. Diego Lopes already makes more than Evloev and he LOST to Evloev. he's even ranked higher than Evloev.

also the BKFC guys are either never was's or has beens. there's no legit young talent there.

 

[Greyscale]

Do the fighters care much about your pay ?

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

social media blew up in the time frame you're talking about, means easier jobs for better pay. not just being a streamer/influencer either. regular ass jobs are better pay even now compared to the vast majority of MMA fighters.

Lmao.

In the space of like 20 years we've gone from "American boxing is declining because of the rise of MMA and the NFL/NBA" to a few years later "American MMA is declining because of the NFL/NBA" and now we've apparently reached "Americans suck in their own combat sports league because of Youtube"

also the BKFC guys are either never was's or has beens.

The kind of people you see in a BKFC ring today are the exact kind of people you would have seen in a cage 20 years ago. Tattooed American white dudes with mohawks and shit calling themselves "pitbull" etc etc. It basically proves they still exist, they just dont get very far in MMA now because the competition is too stiff/professional.

 

[blunttruth]

No it is not over. There are still a multitude of people out there who have well developed, and well deserved inferiority complexes and self loathing about who they are, what they do, and most profoundly, what they have done with their whole lives, the one life that they have had on this Earth. Those individuals are lost and feel they can only be "saved" in their religious pop culture Cult by signaling their wished for virtues on internet platforms where they pretend they are defending the defenseless. Such pathetic whining by those who seek to fill their emptiness with sympathies from those who share their guilt and shame.