The UFC has been criticized heavily for treatment of fighters and the pay fighters receive for laying it all on the line for Dana and company. I grew up poor and am a working class individual, so it is hard for me to feel sorry for someone for making a grip of money for one fight. That being said, the UFC, and Zuffa LLC, can afford to pay these guys more than they do. For a company that consistently rakes in profit from monthly pay-per-view cards and sold out gates at live events, they are paying some of the fighters peanuts compared to the company's bottom line. Because they are the biggest game in town they can pretty much ask of fighters whatever they want to without repercussion. Recently longtime gatekeeper Heath Herring has come out saying that he is making more money making cheesy B-Movies than he was from prize fighting in the biggest organization on the planet. Herring will more than likely never be a Champion in the organization, but he has name value and has beat some good guys throughout his career. Here is what Heath had to say during an ESPN radio interview:
"I'm trying to make money for myself, feed my family, and these guys are trying to do everything they can to make it impossible for me, with the way the UFC's pay scale and as much as it costs me to get ready for a fight," Herring said, "At the end of the day I made like 40 grand."
"If I was getting a little more money and it was worth my while I'd get back into fighting," Herring said. "But right now I'm making more in movies. I've got to look out for number one as far as that goes."
"These guys are literally making money off our blood, sweat and tears. We don't get any health insurance. If you get hurt training for a fight, you're screwed. It's really kind of crazy," Herring said. "Dana White's got six Ferraris. Hell, I just want one."Considering how much it costs to pay for a decent training camp and try to live off of the money you have, I can see where Heath is coming from.
Micheal Rome recently brought up a situation I was unaware of regarding a lawsuit against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson for pulling out of the Rashad fight due to his role in the A-Team movie and his unofficial retirement announcement on his blog.
"According to the complaint, on September 22, 2009, Jackson posted a blog on his website stating he was done fighting. The UFC took this to be an official statement of retirement, and exercised their right under the promotional agreement to suspend the contract pending Jackson’s return to the UFC. After sending Jackson a letter notifying him of the suspension, Jackson’s manager, Anthony McGann, responded with a letter stating that Jackson was ready to renegotiate his contract. The letter also threatens to proceed "in the courts" if Zuffa is unwilling to renegotiate. The complaint asserts that Jackson is intentionally trying to extort the UFC into renegotiating his deal under threat of running out his promotional agreement. The UFC brought this action to get a declaratory judgment stating that Jackson’s refusal to fight and statements that he was "done fighting" constitute a retirement that allows them to exercise their rights under the promotional agreement, including the right to suspend the agreement and thus toll the term of the contract."Now regardless of the fact that Page may want more money than he is currently getting from the UFC, do they really need to file a lawsuit against one of their biggest names because he wanted to do a movie? I think not, but I guess that when asked the question from A Bronx Tale "Would you rather be loved or feared" The UFC brass answered the latter.
In another display of legal Budo, Zuffa recently won a lawsuit against Ken Shamrock who was filing suit saying the UFC owed him money for not honoring fights left on his contract. Now I am not advocating that Shamrock should get the money, because he really wasn't in any condition to be competing in the UFC at the time of his departure nor is he now. However, the real stinger in this situation is that Zuffa is deciding to excerise a clause in his contract that would hold him responsible for all of the company's legal fees from the case and decided to trupet the whole thing online via a press release:
"The UFC has a clear and unambiguous attorney fee clause in all of its contracts with fighters to the effect, that in the event a fighter loses any contractual challenge in court, that fighter will be responsible for paying our fees. Accordingly, we will be filing a motion to seek recovery of all of our expenses and fees which were occasioned by this lawsuit."Way to treat one of your hall of fame athletes fellas. I guess this really is a "what have you done for me lately" type of situation for the Billionaire Boys Club aka Zuffa and The UFC. From Randy Couture, Rampage Jackson, Heath Herring, Tito Ortiz, and the list goes on. Fighters feeling slighted has been reported with many competitors in the organization and may continue on until they start treating fighters as the heart of the company that they are.
2 comments:
Dear UFC hater,
First, UFC bashing is outdated by a few months. They are back to putting on stacked shows and Strikeforce 'huggers are getting tired of only being able to talk about Fedor/Werdum for the next three months. Guess you need to brush up on current events next time before trying desperately to stir the pot in the MMA world.
Now professor, let's put out the entire Rampage story and tell us how the UFC is in the wrong. First, Rampage commits to being a coach on TUF to build up the fight against Rashad in his hometown of Memphis. The UFC puts a huge deposit down on reserving the venue and spends their resources and Spike TV's resources by putting together this card and spending valuable air time on TUF to promote the main event. After the main event has been officially announced, Rampage removes himself from the fight and then his manager sues the UFC to force them to renegotiate his contract. After all the BS Rampage does, the UFC only asks for attorney fees for their capital spent at court defending this frivolous lawsuit, which happens to be standard procedure for these occurrences, and which happens to be written in all fighters' contracts.
Finally, the UFC has around 300 fighters under contract and you can only pull four names -- two of which the UFC has gone out of their way to resolve conflict with -- and you say their is growing fighter discontent?
Do us all a favor and stick to the fights. You are clinging desperately to the sinking ship of UFC hate that true MMA fans are abandoning.
-Kevin in Japan
Thanks for the comment! I am not a UFC hater by any means Kevin, they consistently put on the best cards in MMA. However their pay scale is not up to par with what it should be for the fighters. They are constantly leaving fighters feeling slighted by the organization and I have to think that there is some truth to it. I am not trying "desperately" to stir the proverbial shit pot brah, just stating my opinion and observations.
Jay
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