Please sir, can we have some more?
With the return of regular fights from the UFC, somewhat welcomed by your everyday fan such as myself, seems not everyone is as pleased as us. Now, fighters fight, some are lucky to make a good living from it. And some I feel are taken advantage of by their employer, but you feel in the current climate of COVID 19 and all other things going on, you’d think fighters may be happy to take what they can get in terms of purses and cage time. That’s not the case. First, there was Henry Cejudo shock retirement on the very top of his game after what I thought was a great performance against Dominic Cruz. Rumours circulated after, that it’s all a stunt to try to generate more money. These rumours yet to be confirmed but I would imagine a return of some sort soon enough. Then, one of the all-time goats, Mr Picogram himself, Jon Jones, who, if Dana is telling the truth has demanded ‘Wilder’ money to go up to heavyweight to fight Francis Ngannou. I will level with him here……. there’s not enough money on this planet for me to leave my weight class and go up a weight and fight that monster. But Bones seemed keen. And so did the interest of all social media outlets. Whether or not that fight would generate enough interest to justify paying him $30 million is another question. And more recently Jorge Masvidal. What I can gather, is Jorge been offered a set salary, to fight a top-ranked fighter (rumour is Usman but no guarantee) but the salary is half of what he made last night. Throw in the mix of Nate Diaz request for more, as he feels he isn’t treated fairly and they are started to form a case against the UFC. Granted these lads are top draws. And usually, in normal circumstance, they could argue the case of bigger profit should equal better purse. But with no revenue from ticket sales, and one PPV show on average covering the wages for 3 other fight nights also, perhaps now is the wrong time to seak higher earnings. That being said, perhaps Mark Hunts long-standing call for a fighters’ union is starting to make sense with other fighters.
