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White defends UFC’s pay structure
By Stephan | August 30, 2006
I guess Dana is tired of hearing the charades about UFCs low wages, check what he has to say here.
“I’ve made more millionaires in this business than anybody else has,” White added.
It’s nice to hear his side of the story, finally. I have also been critical of the UFC wages, I dont buy the argument that if the fighters dont like it, they just dont need to accept the terms. The reality, is they will always find people willing to fight for 2 and 2 for the UFC, the question is will they be of good talent? Not really. Frankly, this last UFC looked more like a KOTC + Babalu vs Liddell show. Dont believe me? Look at the rankings of the best fighters in the world on mmaweekly. Those rankings are not perfect, thats for another discussion, but they are pretty close.
You get my point, the UFC should strive to have the best MMA athletes in the world, this is clearly not the case. Another point to prove how shallow the quality of the talent pool in the UFC. Take a look at this next matchup. Anderson Silva vs Rich Franklin. Dont get me wrong I really like Anderson Silva and it should be a good fight, but how does he get a title fight after only one fight in the organization? And not even on an official UFC per say, but on an Ultimate Fight Night! That’s for the Middleweight Division, what about the Light-Heavywieght division? Who can give Liddell a decent fight? Babalu has destroyed pretty much everyone in the division, and couldnt survive more that 95 seconds with Liddell. Maybe Vera?! And the Heavyweight division is pathetic right now…Arlovsky has lost his confidence and Tim Sylvia the champion could hang with half the Pride fighters at that level.
The UFC is finally making decent money; with Pride on the verge of self-imploding; it is time to spend money and actually get the best fighters in the world. Pride has had that distinction clearly, but UFC has a great opportunity to raise its product quality. Spend and get Cro-cop, Overeem, Fedor, Wanderlei, etc!
This is fightopinion.com and this is my opinion!
Topics: All Topics, MMA, PRIDE, Stephan Marceau, UFC | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I would agree with most of what you said, except saying that UFC 62 was KOTC with Babalu & Chuck. Thats a very big stretch. UFC 62 was very entertaining and was worth the $40. I’ve yet to see a KOTC PPV worth $20 let alone $40…and this is coming from a huge supporter of KOTC.
Except for the Main Event you could find fights featuring the caliber of fighters on UFC 62 in KOTC or WEC. This is not a new phenomenon. This is now the UFC’s standard operating procedure in 2006. No division beyond 170lbs has any depth. There are no rankings within UFC and rarely are there title eliminator fights.
At least they didn’t use the laughable phrase “the Super Bowl of MMA” on this broadcast. If they did I’m fortunate to have missed it.
I thought UFC 62 was entertaining. Hardly worth more than $25. But entertaining. Almost all of the fights had good action. Griffin/Bonnar is a useless fight to me. If I’m going to watch two guys without knockout power swing wildly boxing’s 130-147lb divisions have much more entertaining and skilled fighters.
I think he comes across as a real arrogant prick in that article, particularly when talking about the other promotions. He could be just as successful as he is, without acting like billy big bollocks and unneccessarily pissing people off.
and “im not in this for the money and never have been”… it’s very easy to say that when you have shit loads of money.
I believe that the UFC has a great opprotunity to be on top of the MMA world right. As far as talent goes, I believe that Pride has the top fighters. With rumors that Cro-Cop going to the WFA, it surprises me that UFC isn’t on top of that. It would also be dissapionting if Pride doesn’t do anything to resign him, but more surprising if the UFC doesn’t get involved with negotiations. I couldn’t believe that the UFC let Quinton “Rampage” Jackson slip through but maybe that’s the UFC trying to shelter Liddel. I believe in the theory of “you gotta spend money to make money”. Dana White comes off as if the top fighters need the UFC, but after watching the last UFC (Liddel vs. Sobral) fights it seems like the UFC needs the top fighters. With Pride coming to the states I think White has something to worry about.
They’ll probably bring in some guys from PRIDE, but I doubt they’ll sign everyone. You won’t see anyone from PRIDE fighting in UFC until PRIDE goes under, or Dana White somehow gets their name on a UFC contract. I’m guessing they wait for PRIDE to take the dirt nap before trying to sign there fighters. This is eerily reminiscent of 2001 when WCW folded, and WWE picked up the pieces, and could pay them anything they wanted because their was nowhere else to work.
WFA isn’t in a position to spend a lot of money, and they don’t have the promotional vehicle to get fighters over, like UFC does. I don’t know the specifics of their Showtime deal, but Showtime is a premium channel that doesn’t have the penetration of a cable network like SpikeTV.
By the way, UFC 61 drew 775K on PPV. I’m sure Tim Sylvia will take the credit for that because he was in the “main event”.
where did you get 775k from? i havent seen any figs posted anywhere. that would be $31m PPV revenue.
I read in the Wrestling Obsever that is looked to be over 700k.
The reason Rampage did not sign with the UFC was that the WFA offered him a very big percentage. Sadly, since they lost a ton of money, Rampage gets didily. That is why all of the rumors are flying that his people are now talking with the UFC.
MMA T-Shirts – I read in Figure Four Weekly. I think FFW is just about as credible as Wrestling Observer.
why do I even bother coming to this site?
[why do I even bother coming to this site?]
I don’t know playboy, you should know the answer to that.
Any way, I don’t Zuffa sports will make that much of a move to sign PRIDE fighters because UFC is still making an ass load of money without them. They may get some more Japanese viewership, but still.
I think PRIDE will eventually make a turn-around. When that turn around will happen is anyone’s guess.
To answer Christians question about Cro-Cop, he has already resolved his dispute with Pride and has resigned with them. As far as his offers from the US, he has also said that it was not the WFA, leading us to the conclusion that the only other org. with enough money to seriously negotiate with him would have been the UFC (not confirmed).
Good lookin’ out cjfighter, it’s good to chat with people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about.