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MMA General |OT| We just wanna bang GAF

Cunth

Cunth

Fingerlickin' Good!
I dunno. I rewatched stipe/ngannou the other night. Unless Ngannou has improved his gas tank significantly, Jones really just needs to avoid getting knocked out in the first round flurries
 
JareBear: Remastered

JareBear: Remastered

Banned
Cunth said:
I dunno. I rewatched stipe/ngannou the other night. Unless Ngannou has improved his gas tank significantly, Jones really just needs to avoid getting knocked out in the first round flurries
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I guess it’s hard to say because he followed the Stipe loss with a 3 round snooze fest to Derrick Lewis and has since won 4 straight by first round KO. I would venture that he’s an improved fighter since the Stipe loss but who knows.

I just don’t know if Current Jon would be able to tire Francis out before Francis sends him into orbit

 
JareBear: Remastered

JareBear: Remastered

Banned
Dana just revealed the May 30th Fight Night card live



sorry for the blur, best I could do

Screenshot-56.png


Screenshot-55.png


Woodley vs Burns

Mackenzie Dern back in action after getting stomped last time out


Later in the stream Dana says he doesn't see Jones vs Francis happening
 
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JareBear: Remastered

JareBear: Remastered

Banned
115 and 135 are good divisions IMO, or at least have been in the past, or go through periods of solid competition.

125 is weak, but slowly progressing. 145 is basically a token class for Nunes to keep holding two belts. No one at 125 is beating Val in the next 3 years, IMO

The weird thing about that Carano/Cyborg fight is, if I remember correctly, at one point Carano actually had full mount and seemed to just give it up. Been years since I have seen it, need to watch it again. Once it was standing again Cyborg just started teeing off, from what I remember.
 
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DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
mekes said:
I love this, as I’m sure Cejudo was trying to be smart with that move. Backfire of the year IMO. And did I already say I love it? 😂
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Why? He didn’t feel like he’s being compensated fairly (which no one in the UFC is) so walked away. Good for him for taking a stand. If he does decide to come back he’ll walk right back into challenging for the title. What does being stripped of the belt even mean really? They’re just props UFC dangles in front of people.
 
mekes

mekes

Member
DKehoe DKehoe

I don’t think his plan was to actually retire. Everything the man has said for the past 18 months has been to provoke a heightened reaction towards himself. He wanted the reaction with the announcement but even Joe Rogan didn’t care in the actual post fight interview. I think he was trying to do a Conor, but since hardly anybody cares (I’m being kind with that, imo), the UFC just called his bluff, waved goodbye and vacated the belt. And I think that is hilarious, because you get paid more fighting as a Champion anyway. He won’t be able to go fight anywhere else unless the UFC release him from his contract.

I agree on wages. But Cejudo took home roughly $385k not counting PPV cut. It’s hardly the insult of Nate Diaz’s $20k deal with $20k win bonus prior to his McGregor fight.

And if it was an honest retirement, good luck to the man. But I honestly... just don’t buy it.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
mekes said:
DKehoe DKehoe

I don’t think his plan was to actually retire. Everything the man has said for the past 18 months has been to provoke a heightened reaction towards himself. He wanted the reaction with the announcement but even Joe Rogan didn’t care in the actual post fight interview. I think he was trying to do a Conor, but since hardly anybody cares (I’m being kind with that, imo), the UFC just called his bluff, waved goodbye and vacated the belt. And I think that is hilarious, because you get paid more fighting as a Champion anyway. He won’t be able to go fight anywhere else unless the UFC release him from his contract.

I agree on wages. But Cejudo took home roughly $385k not counting PPV cut. It’s hardly the insult of Nate Diaz’s $20k deal with $20k win bonus prior to his McGregor fight.

And if it was an honest retirement, good luck to the man. But I honestly... just don’t buy it.
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It’s entirely possible he’ll be back. Most fighters who retire in their prime (and many who don’t) end up returning. So I wouldn’t be shocked to see it. The “cringe” stuff felt like it was him trying to cultivate a personality to make more money. If he wasn’t happy with what he was making then him taking a stand is to be respected.

I’m sure he got stuff like PPV points too but $385k sucks. Cormier mentioned today that he got $3 million for the Jones fights, which both did over 800k buys. It’s a joke how little they are paid compared to what they deserve. There’s a reason other athletes literally laugh at what UFC fighters make. But the appeal for Endeavour in buying the UFC was that you can get those big rights fees that sports can command but don’t need to pay your athletes accordingly. And because Endeavour has all that debt there’s no chance they’ll be increasing fighter pay anytime soon.
 
Cunth

Cunth

Fingerlickin' Good!
I agree the pay is really poor in the ufc, especially at the lower end of the rankings. People fighting for 10k, 20k is just ridiculous at this level of competition.
 
mekes

mekes

Member
DKehoe said:
It’s entirely possible he’ll be back. Most fighters who retire in their prime (and many who don’t) end up returning. So I wouldn’t be shocked to see it. The “cringe” stuff felt like it was him trying to cultivate a personality to make more money. If he wasn’t happy with what he was making then him taking a stand is to be respected.

I’m sure he got stuff like PPV points too but $385k sucks. Cormier mentioned today that he got $3 million for the Jones fights, which both did over 800k buys. It’s a joke how little they are paid compared to what they deserve. There’s a reason other athletes literally laugh at what UFC fighters make. But the appeal for Endeavour in buying the UFC was that you can get those big rights fees that sports can command but don’t need to pay your athletes accordingly. And because Endeavour has all that debt there’s no chance they’ll be increasing fighter pay anytime soon.
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I do agree on the morality surrounding fighters pay, and the chasm between the haves and have nots in the UFC is sad. But I’m just not sad to see the back of him personally. He’s been shitting up MMAWorld videos that I otherwise enjoy for the past year and a half! If he spoke openly and honestly about the issue I would probably support him on it. It was never lost on me that he was trying to drum up interest with his change in personality. I found it a shame as I actually liked him before the switch, and changed to not being able to stand him.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
Masvidal the cunt know that he can't beat usman so he want another easy money fight against diaz, lol...

Curious to see if conor accept the fight against usman, i'm ok with seeing the nigerian straight up killing that bitch.
 
Ornlu

Ornlu

Banned
DKehoe said:
Why? He didn’t feel like he’s being compensated fairly (which no one in the UFC is)
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What? Unless the UFC is signing some new, bomb-ass $$$ broadcasting deal, fighter pay isn't going to go up drastically. What is "fair" will go up as the pool of cash does. The sport unfortunately doesn't have near the level of income of others.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
Ornlu said:
What? Unless the UFC is signing some new, bomb-ass $$$ broadcasting deal, fighter pay isn't going to go up drastically. What is "fair" will go up as the pool of cash does. The sport unfortunately doesn't have near the level of income of others.
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They signed a new bomb-ass $$$ broadcasting deal with ESPN last year and it didn't affect pay. UFC fighters get paid 16 percent of the organisation's revenue. In a lot of sports it's around 50 percent. They also paid out a $300 million dividend a couple months ago. So it's not like income is an issue for them.
 
Ornlu

Ornlu

Banned
So why does the average pro boxer make $35K a year, but the average UFC fighter makes $138K? Both sports are niche, both sports focus on events and individuals rather than leagues, teams, etc. Both sports have headliners that make mad bank, and lower card guys that don't make a lot of money, so I think it's as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you're going to get.

Also, what other sustainable MMA org has paid better than the UFC? All the ones that did went bankrupt or had to get gobbled up due to financial distress. I'd be all for paying guys more to fight, I'm just not convinced that there is as big a market for our sport as what people think there is.

If we compare to other sports, there are individual teams in larger sports that make more in broadcasting than the entire UFC.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
Ornlu said:
So why does the average pro boxer make $35K a year, but the average UFC fighter makes $138K? Both sports are niche, both sports focus on events and individuals rather than leagues, teams, etc. Both sports have headliners that make mad bank, and lower card guys that don't make a lot of money, so I think it's as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you're going to get.

Also, what other sustainable MMA org has paid better than the UFC? All the ones that did went bankrupt or had to get gobbled up due to financial distress. I'd be all for paying guys more to fight, I'm just not convinced that there is as big a market for our sport as what people think there is.

If we compare to other sports, there are individual teams in larger sports that make more in broadcasting than the entire UFC.
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Boxing is the whole sport and UFC is the top level. Pride paid more than UFC and it wasn't their finances that brought them down. Plenty of guys who have moved from UFC to Bellator have said they get paid more now, in part because Bellator aren't as restrictive about what other incomes they can have. How many boxers drawing 800k PPV buys are getting $3 million?

If UFC were paying out a larger percentage of its revenue to it's fighters, let's say 50 percent since that's around what the NBA and NFL do, and the current paydays were just what they were under that then I'd think that's reasonable. You gotta have a sustainable budget. But we're not in the dark days of the organisation just scraping by to survive anymore. They've got really lucrative broadcasting deals bringing in huge amounts of money. Money that's basically guaranteed unlike before when they were relying so much on buyrates. They can afford to pay more. They just choose not to. And, leaving aside the question of fairness, it's a pity because if the UFC doesn't pay it's athletes like they are elite level performers then it will hold them back from attracting elite level performers.
 
JareBear: Remastered

JareBear: Remastered

Banned
Man, I really hate the idea of Conor fighting Usman. I really hope that is not what the UFC does next. I won't go into another "why I hate Conor at 170" diatribe, but bottom line is I just think his next fight needs to be at 155, period.
 
Ornlu

Ornlu

Banned
DKehoe said:
Boxing is the whole sport and UFC is the top level. Pride paid more than UFC and it wasn't their finances that brought them down. Plenty of guys who have moved from UFC to Bellator have said they get paid more now, in part because Bellator aren't as restrictive about what other incomes they can have. How many boxers drawing 800k PPV buys are getting $3 million?
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Boxing is notorious for paying the top guys insane money, and paying almost nothing to guys that are coming up. I certainly wouldn't want to use boxing as an ideal business model.

I agree that the UFC pays their fighters more than other orgs. Outside of the biggest draws that other orgs try to take away from the UFC, guys in other orgs aren't making much. Bellator, which you use as an example, usually only pays the top guys on the card, as in the guys on the poster. The other fighters at their events are often supplied by local orgs, and make whatever scraps they can get. Even if they make a highlight reel. So a Bellator card is like watching a feeder league show before the main event, but not billed that way. So, yeah, if an org wants to spend every $ on a handful of guys to try and poach fighters from the UFC, that's a valid business model. It doesn't mean that their pay is great overall.

And Pride FC absolutely was brought down by their finances. They were not doing well at all when Zuffa bought them out.

DKehoe said:
If UFC were paying out a larger percentage of its revenue to it's fighters, let's say 50 percent since that's around what the NBA and NFL do, and the current paydays were just what they were under that then I'd think that's reasonable. You gotta have a sustainable budget. But we're not in the dark days of the organisation just scraping by to survive anymore. They've got really lucrative broadcasting deals bringing in huge amounts of money. Money that's basically guaranteed unlike before when they were relying so much on buyrates. They can afford to pay more. They just choose not to. And, leaving aside the question of fairness, it's a pity because if the UFC doesn't pay it's athletes like they are elite level performers then it will hold them back from attracting elite level performers.
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I don't disagree that they probably pay a smaller % directly to fighters. I also have no idea what their actual profits are. I know that the total revenue amount is tiny when compared to other sports, and that the roster is not small. Lots of bonuses get paid, exec pay, office pay, properties, licensing, medical insurance for fighters, paid travel for fighters, coaches, etc. Would it be better to do a higher direct pay structure, and just farm out or stop paying for the rest?

I don't disagree that their is room to improve, I just don't see fighter pay as an egregious issue when compared to their competitors.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
Ornlu said:
Boxing is notorious for paying the top guys insane money, and paying almost nothing to guys that are coming up. I certainly wouldn't want to use boxing as an ideal business model.

I agree that the UFC pays their fighters more than other orgs. Outside of the biggest draws that other orgs try to take away from the UFC, guys in other orgs aren't making much. Bellator, which you use as an example, usually only pays the top guys on the card, as in the guys on the poster. The other fighters at their events are often supplied by local orgs, and make whatever scraps they can get. Even if they make a highlight reel. So a Bellator card is like watching a feeder league show before the main event, but not billed that way. So, yeah, if an org wants to spend every $ on a handful of guys to try and poach fighters from the UFC, that's a valid business model. It doesn't mean that their pay is great overall.

And Pride FC absolutely was brought down by their finances. They were not doing well at all when Zuffa bought them out.
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But the other organisations aren't as big so of course they aren't paying as much as a whole. The issue is how much UFC does pay their fighters against how much they can pay them. Saying that someone like Cage Warriors doesn't pay as well isn't a fair comparison. If they are a major sports organisation then they should be compared to other major organisation. Again, I'm not talking about direct 1:1 numbers but percentages of revenue.

Pride fell apart because it was exposed that they were in bed with the Yakuza. Everyone basically knew it anyway but it being made official brought them down.

Ornlu said:
I don't disagree that they probably pay a smaller % directly to fighters. I also have no idea what their actual profits are. I know that the total revenue amount is tiny when compared to other sports, and that the roster is not small. Lots of bonuses get paid, exec pay, office pay, properties, licensing, medical insurance for fighters, paid travel for fighters, coaches, etc. Would it be better to do a higher direct pay structure, and just farm out or stop paying for the rest?

I don't disagree that their is room to improve, I just don't see fighter pay as an egregious issue when compared to their competitors.
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Keep in mind that fighters are having to pay for their training camp, coaches to be flown out and put up in hotels, paying their managers and taxes. They aren't keeping all of their payout.

I think it's worth talking about when you have a champion level fighter in his prime walk away because he feels underpaid.
 
Ornlu

Ornlu

Banned
DKehoe said:
But the other organisations aren't as big so of course they aren't paying as much as a whole. The issue is how much UFC does pay their fighters against how much they can pay them. Saying that someone like Cage Warriors doesn't pay as well isn't a fair comparison. If they are a major sports organisation then they should be compared to other major organisation. Again, I'm not talking about direct 1:1 numbers but percentages of revenue.

Pride fell apart because it was exposed that they were in bed with the Yakuza. Everyone basically knew it anyway but it being made official brought them down.
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There's no other MMA org that has managed to survive at anything more than a regional level. the UFC must be doing something right. All of fighting (MMA, Boxing, Kickboxing, etc.) is made up largely of scumbags and scumbag orgs, and the UFC is no exception. Shit is shady, but we love it anyway. :messenger_grinning_sweat:

Anyway, nobody pays people more money unless they have to. The fighters know what they would need to do to get more $$$. They've talked about it for ages, but it hasn't happened yet.

DKehoe said:
Keep in mind that fighters are having to pay for their training camp, coaches to be flown out and put up in hotels, paying their managers and taxes. They aren't keeping all of their payout.

I think it's worth talking about when you have a champion level fighter in his prime walk away because he feels underpaid.
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For sure, people need to get paid. They do fly people out and book a room on company $$$, but probably not to the level that fighters want. So they'll cough up for the fighter and the corner man, but the fighter has to cough up for his entourage, I guess.

Athletes walking away happens in every sport, too. It's human nature to want to be paid more, whether you're making what you're 'worth' or not. Marshawn Lynch is a good example. If you're making $500K a year but think you're worth $1M, or if you're making $20M and think you're worth $40M, you still might walk.
 
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