Dana White has been running the UFC for a long time. He is widely thought of as one of the best promoters ever but that does not come without criticism. Most of the heat that White takes from fans is about fight matchups or fighter pay. Recently the amount of money in which fighters are paid has become a hot button issue amongst fans, media, and the fighters themselves. Despite all the critics White stands firm that the UFC is paying fighters exactly what they are worth and that they make good money.
Dana White believes that fighters get paid what they should
One of the biggest advocates for increasing fighter pay lately has been none other than YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul. He has been publicly stating that he believes UFC fighters are not getting paid enough. It is true that boxers make a great deal more than MMA fighters at this moment in time but UFC President Dana White feels there should be no comparison. He spoke recently to GQ about this topic.
“If you look at what we’ve done with the business in the last 22 years, incredible, never been done ever. You always have to have something to bi-ch about, I guess and fighters always want to make more money,” White said. Boxing is absolutely been destroyed because of money and all the things that go on. It’s never gonna happen while I’m here. Believe me, these guys get paid what they’re supposed to get paid. They eat what they kill, they get a percentage of the Pay Per View buys, and the money is spread out amongst all the fighters if you don’t like it, there’s a simple solution to this problem. Go start your own MMA organization, knock yourself out, pay them whatever you want to pay them. It’s been done before how’s it worked out for other guys? Not well.”
Going hand-in-hand with fighters getting paid properly comes fans paying for pay-per-view events. White also stated that he believes fans that illegally stream fighting events are contributing to players losing out on money.
“You’re bitching about fighters not making enough money,” White said. “They get a piece of the pay-per-view. People who steal it are stealing from us and them and what happens to people who steal? You get fu–ing smashed and you go to jail. That’s what happens to you and I make sure that we get you. Everybody was fu–ing laughing at me when I was talking about this. We caught a lot of people. People weren’t laughing when they got caught, and a lot of people were begging me not to prosecute them. Stealing is stealing.”
White says that if any fighters are unhappy with the way that UFC pays they are free to leave and perhaps start their own promotion or fight elsewhere. One instant of a popular fighter not accepting a financial offer from the UFC was Fedor Emelianenko. The UFC tried to get a fight for Emelianenko back in 2009 when they offered him a fight with Brock Lesnar. Dana White also touched on the subject saying that UFC offered him a great deal of money but yet he turned it down.
“I tried to make the fight. We offered Fedor Emelianenko an ungodly amount of money and they didn’t want the fight. I don’t know what to tell you,” White said.
Watch the full video below:
UFC fighters of the best of the best in mixed martial arts and deserve to be paid as such which White feels he is doing as president of the biggest MMA organizational world. Yet despite this fact every week it seems there are fighters begging for a performance bonus on Saturday nights.
