E:60 tackles whether or not the UFC is a monopoly

[Liquidrob]

whats funny is when MMA fans say 'if you have money you can get into MMA' parroting Dana White

Thats not an arguement and has nothing to do with it, if you have enough money you can start a pro football league, your boy McMahon did, what does having money and starting a MMA league have to do with the corrupt business practices of zuffa?

head in the sand

[EmpireWF]

They have held down almost every show that has tried to come up, I'm not talking about MMA night in the back of boss hogs BBQ shack

actually, just by getting that rule passed about MMA can only be in an 'octogon' it screws everyone in that province in canada

So the UFC is full of shrewd business guys and they use their power to get beneficial breaks?

Okay...

[Liquidrob]

lol @ empire and his 'it's just business' answers for everything zuffa related

[Liquidrob]

Some quotes from UFC fighters:

We're basically fighting for crumbs," said one current UFC fighter, a veteran of more than a dozen years in the sport who also asked that his name be withheld for fear of reprisals from UFC management.

"The top 5 percent [of fighters] are definitely making good money, but you've got to look at the guys at the bottom of the card," the fighter said. "They can't fight anywhere else. If they make $10,000 a fight and fight every six months, they can't make ends meet."


"We're definitely not getting our fair share of the cash," said another fighter currently under contract with the UFC. A fan favorite, he, too, refused to be named, citing concerns about the reaction from UFC management.

"Any opposition, they [expletive] crush it," said the fighter. "Until somebody starts a union, we're all sort of at their mercy."

From Fighter X:

"Their business practices are hardcore and cut-throat. We're paid like entertainers when we should be paid like athletes. They want us hungry. They want us to be poor … so they have more control over us."

"They make the fans out to think that they give out all these bonuses. They're [the bonuses] $5,000 to $10,000 on average. Most of the locker room bonuses I've seen are $5,000."

[SHOGUN]

ZUFFA does a lot of shady shit.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I love how Dana is always going on about "UFC is a sport!", but when 'Ultimate Fighting' comes under scrutiny as a monopoly, the company line changes to 'We are in the MMA business, anyone who has the money can be in the MMA business, we are not alone in the MMA business!'.

So is the sport you promote UFC, or MMA?

[EmpireWF]

"The top 5 percent [of fighters] are definitely making good money, but you've got to look at the guys at the bottom of the card," the fighter said. "They can't fight anywhere else. If they make $10,000 a fight and fight every six months, they can't make ends meet."

I said earlier in the thread the underneath guys should be paid more than the $8k show/win they're getting.

[Liquidrob]

funny all this stuff coming out now and espn doing a piece on it, old wacky rob has been saying this stuff for years, about time it gets out

Every sport the revenue is around 40 to 50% for the players, in the UFC it is in 10 to 20% range if even that, the jig is up, the ufc has been raping the fans and fighters for years, we built this sport with our support and the fighters blood, time to pay the piper

[CrimsonGhost56]

Pride and the Yakuza were more legit then Zuffa

[Liquidrob]

For all you yahoos who want to support 'lower level' fighters making low wages because they don't bring in money go f yourselfs, without those guys there is no sport, up and comers need guys to fight, stars are built on these type of guys, the cards which the ufc sells ' we're not like boxing, we put on great exciting fights!' are used to fill up these cards, fighters have to be paid so they can fight

You want to be the top dog, pay everyone, that's how the real sports do it, bench warmers are needed, everyone can't be a star and stars can't fight each other all the time, they can barely fill a card with 2 or 3 big time match ups which they're charging 50 bucks for

[Warner2BruceTD]

MMA "journalist" and frequent UFC apologist Jeremy Botter attacks the piece over at the Observer board...

Much of the OTL stuff was researched by Josh Gross and John Barr. Josh actually has a story about it:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/pag ... ul-hit-all

I like Josh, but I'm not a fan of the story, mostly because it relies almost exclusively on anonymous quotes from fighters. I'm not implying these are fabricated quotes, but a story just seems untrustworthy when there is almost nothing of substance on the record. I understand that not a single UFC fighter is going to go on record with quotes for a story like this because, no matter what Lorenzo says about fighters being able to say whatever they want about the company, they really do not like people discussing fighter pay and their financial inner-workings in public. But there has to be a better angle for approaching it than relying on anonymous quotes.

I used to get into heated debates with this guy, but we haven't crossed paths in a while. I had to respond to this pile of shit post, though.

He doesn't like the off the record quotes, yet doesn't want to imply they are untrue, and even admits that they needed to be anonymous for a story to happen in the first place do to the idea that nobody would ever talk otherwise.

In this particular case, this is actually a story where anonymous quotes are actually more credible than on the record quotes, because getting anything on the record would just be guys bullshitting and kissing Zuffa ass. How a journalist fails to see this is baffling.

[EmpireWF]

For all you yahoos who want to support 'lower level' fighters making low wages because they don't bring in money go f yourselfs

Who are you arguing with?

Has anyone said the guys are lucky to be making $8k/$8k?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Who are you arguing with?

Has anyone said the guys are lucky to be making $8k/$8k?

Do you happen to frequent the Observer UFC..oops, I mean MMA board?

Doing a quick look at the payouts from 141, only a few fighters made less than $10K. All those guys were bottom rung fighter, who are interchangeable, are marginal UFC fighters, and made no difference whatsoever to business. Why do they deserve more money?

At least in a team sport, you can argue that even the last guy on the bench plays a role with the team, and deserves compensation. These guys were talking about deserve nothing. If they are good enough, they will earn the bigger money. simple as that.

these are grown men who have chosen to live a fantasy life of trying to be a full time fighter. they aren't coal miners, or day laborers or something.

There are 30+ teams vying to pay someone like Albert Pujols $250 million. Those same teams are also vying to pay someone like Mitch Moreland $450,000. Why? Because Pujols is a star who earned that thru performance, and Moreland is not.

And this guy, who finds a way to blame the SPONSORS, not Zuffa, for low fighter wages lol

You really would have to hold sponsors as accountable though. You aren't gonna get the same amount of money from them fighting for Titan Fighting Championships as you are if you were fighting for the UFC. This sport benefits more from having only one league, and that's what I view the UFC as, a league, more than anything.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Yes, let's hold those dastardly sponsors responsible for this! Those cretins!

[EmpireWF]

Well those guys are just morons.

IMO, fighting for the UFC should mean that you have the option of being a full-time fighter. If you choose to be like Shane Carwin or others who have day jobs, more power to you.

But the UFC should mean everyone makes enough to be able to fight 3 or more times and afford all their bills. Obviously, that's probably never going to happen.

Where is the minimum though? Should it be $20k instead of $8k? How do you come up with the proper figure?

I doubt Joe Blow making $80k a year potentially is going to be able to be a full-time fighter.