And now let Jose Aldo talk to you about why fighters need a fucking union

We continue Union in MMA Day today with an explosive quote from Jose Aldo in which he broke down to Combate exactly why fighters need a union. Will it fall on deaf ears? Maybe will people misconstrue the quote? Perhaps. Will Dana White give him an earful of shit after hearing this read back to him by his secretary that makes more than his average crop of fighters per year? Likely. 

Here it is in all its glory, transcribed by Bloody Elbow

“First of all. It’s shit. Everybody has been talking about it. We, athletes, are losing a lot. They said we would be like NBA or NFL athlete, but that doesn’t apply, because we are not paid monthly like they are.  It doesn’t matter how much we will be paid, all athletes who had sponsors are losing money. That’s a huge setback for us. We live for each fight, we have to keep fighting and nobody fights more than three times a year.  Not a champion, anyway. Even the value they measured doesn’t match what our sponsors were paying us. That is great for the UFC, but not for the fighters.  I see a lot of athletes losing too much. If you are a beginner there is not that big of a hurry to get paid, but it still isn’t that much. Not enough to get them by at least. I don’t like it. Ever since they started talking about this, I asked to see what they were offering us and I never thought it was interesting, especially for the champions.” 

“If we are going to talk about something, that does not depend on just me being the champion, or Cain Velasquez, or any other champion. If we had a union for fighters, and we were all together, like in the NBA, this would’ve been different.  But fighters are not united.  Today I have a price the event is willing to pay to have me, but there are other fighters out there willing to fight for spare change if I don’t want to, and that is not even their fault. The UFC brought the sport to where it is today, great, that’s their merit. But if athletes were more united and had a union to protect them, I don’t think this would happen.”

“When I speak about this, I don’t speak for myself. If I say this might be good for Aldo, yeah, sure it can, I would make good money, I could say that. But when I look at other athletes, like I do at my gym, they need me and Andre Pederneiras to start helping them, because that’s a bad thing that they are doing to them. It gets really bad for up and comers or guys who are trying to reach the top.  I’m not talking about me, I’m all right, I’m the champion and I have a high price. Aldo hasn’t become the champion now, he has been the champion for years. But for the beginners, it’s really bad.”

How do you say “mic drop” in Portuguese? 

Published on June 1, 2015 at 4:30 pm
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