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Butt patches & Malki Kawa: “I’m the very best at what I do when it comes to the sponsor game.”
By Zach Arnold | October 11, 2011
MIKE STRAKA: “The thing about the business of MMA, you hear guys like boxers making $30 million USD a fight and the fighters are slowly creeping up to numbers, not $30 million dollars, but they’re creeping up some numbers and particularly you got some guys that are really high up there on the pay scale. How do you see the next generation of fighters making a living in the industry?”
MALKI KAWA: “Well, you know, it’s the same thing like any industry. In the 70s, football players made this much. In the 80s, it went to there. In the 90s, it blew up. In the 2000s, you know, you hear about mega-million contracts and I think with fighting it’s the same thing. I mean, you know, hey, the sport is 20 years old. By the time this sport is 30 years old, 40 years old, you’re going to be hearing about some mega-numbers and getting fighters getting paid what you hear football players and basketball players getting.”
MIKE STRAKA: “Now, a lot of these guys, fans, will read about their favorite fighters and a lot of blogs have it wrong, let’s say… these fighters make more money in sponsorship dollars than they do for their fight purses. Is that true?”
MALKI KAWA: “You know, in some cases it’s true. In other cases, it’s not. It just all really depends on the fighters. The problem is that it’s like a puzzle, people won’t get it. Where’s he fighting on the card? Who’s the fight? Who’s his opponent? What’s the style of the match-up? You know what I mean? Because, you know, the most expensive spot on the shorts is either the crotch or the butt, right? So, if you got a fighter who’s a stand-up guy fighting a wrestling, his crotch and butt almost doesn’t mean anything because chances are he ends up on his back. So, that gets factored in some times. There’s a lot of little things here and there.”
MIKE STRAKA: “So, what you’re saying, so let’s say… Josh Koscheck is fighting Georges St. Pierre, I want the butt patch?”
MALKI KAWA: “Absolutely. As a sponsor, you want the butt patch. And as a manager you need to explain and show the sponsor why they’re going to pay more for the butt patch. Besides the fact that it’s going to do a million PPVs and that’s where all the exposure is, this is why you want to put this much money on Georges or Koscheck because somewhere, somehow it looks like it’s going to end up, you know, on the floor.”
MIKE STRAKA: “Although in that fight, in that instance, they stayed up. But, still, the butt patch is valuable if they’re both standing up the whole time, too, right?”
MALKI KAWA: “Absolutely, that’s the whole thing. So, that’s why when people ask, OK, is it true this and that, yeah, you know, some fighters make more money on sponsorships because, um… and the truth is you really don’t know because a lot of guys will have, you know, a certain… purse set up and another one but the UFC always takes care of these guys. They come up with extra checks and stuff and sometimes that does end up making up. It’s just we don’t really get that information until it’s your fight, so I know in my case with my fighters a lot of them are making more money in their purses, some of them are right there, and some sponsorships is much more. But it’s a gradual curve that’s going up all the time.”
MIKE STRAKA: “Let’s talk about some of your clients and particularly Jon Jones. A kid that’s 23 years old. When he won the belt, the day he won the belt, he tackled a burglar and he got national exposure, put on Jay Leno, I mean how do you coach a kid who goes from relative obscurity to mainstream attention?”
MALKI KAWA: “Well, you know, the thing is with him is he, before I even met him, his biggest thing was to be humble, was to always be down-to-earth and to never, ever come across as one of those guys that’s too good for someone else. He’s done a phenomenal job of that. You know, with anyone with success and fame, things can start to change for you but it’s not him that’s changing, it’s the things around him. People are coming at him left and right. I mean, we just took him to the bathroom, I had to walk him down to the bathroom. I got guys in the stall trying to take pictures of him while he’s using the bathroom. So, if he turns around an tells the guys, hey, stop that, ‘oh, Jon’s a jerk!” And that’s the problem where people don’t get it. Being a famous celebrity athlete, some of them are good people and some of them are bad people. That’s just before the fight. He’s a great person and it doesn’t take a lot of coaching because he’s very self-aware and very self-conscious of how he comes across and what the perception of him is and that’s something he’s constantly working on.”
MIKE STRAKA: “Now, in your case you’re at home and you’re wondering why this guy sounds so familiar and if you’re on Twitter you’re going to know that Malki Kawa’s very active on Twitter, but if you go back to one of the Ultimate Fight nights where a big heavyweight fighter named Matt Mitrione fired you on national television and by doing that he actually made your career. But I want to find out what exactly happened?”
MALKI KAWA: “He didn’t make my career.”
MIKE STRAKA: “What exactly happened?”
MALKI KAWA: “Um, you know what, it’s just a lot of miscommunication. He had a lot of people in his life that were working with him on some stuff and I’m the very best at what I do when it comes to the sponsor game. You’ve experienced it with me, you know very well how good I am at what I do and, um… you know… a lot of external factors, things that were out of my control, things that he had in place already before I got there and, you know… Matt’s Matt and he decided to handle it the way he handled it. I had three weeks notice and basically it’s what it is. So, not to take any excuses, it just didn’t work out. But as you see from that point forward, I’ve pretty much picked up so many popular fighters, marketable fighters, name fighters, Top 10 contenders, #1 contenders, things of that nature. So, I’m not going to say Matt made me because at the end of the day, you know, if one guy had something bad to say I’m sure there would be another 30-40, but it’s one guy. A lot of the guys I represent are very happy, they recommend me to other fighters, that’s how I get a lot of fighters. They just keep saying, “Go with Malki.” So, that being said, you know… it’s just things that happened. Listen, you get hired, you get fired. It’s the way the business goes.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A manager who spends so much time and effort drawing attention to himself instead of his clients strikes me more as being out of pro wrestling than a talent manager. Maybe he’s good, but that’s not a vibe that would give me confidence.
Drew Rosenhaus is pretty good too…
The thing I find the funniest about Malki is he didn’t really get famous (as famous as a MMA agent can be) until Matt Mitrione fired his ass.
Malki Kawa=Ken Pavia 2.0
I get the impression Zuffa/Dana are not big fans of agents in general, so I imagine guys like this (self-promoters) rank incredibly low.
GSP did it right when he got rid of his PR/Agent and went with a large agency. The focus should be on the athletes themselves, not the agents.