I believe this is going to open some fighter’s eyes though to the point that they start asking for money. I’m all for the fighters getting all they can. I’m just worried it would get out of hand like the NFL & MLB.

“Why anyone would refuse this contract is beyond me”- True- who exactly are you?

Fedor ain’t just anyone.

“While I, much like the rest of the MMA world, long to see Randy Couture vs. Fedor, and to a smaller extent Brock vs. Fedor,”
HUH? Please elaborate,on behalf of the rest of the MMA world,and myself.

On top of this you create an article about your opinion of how much money fighter’s shoulda,woulda,coulda made had Fedor been signed?

Could you create a new one about what they would spend their should’ve could’ve would’ve money on and do it with a
Robin Leach accent ?

Sorry John,and welcome aboard.

If Fedor isn’t signed,How much will B.J. and Ken-Flo make?
But if Fedor was signed,how much would they could’ve made?

And,what do you think it would take to get the UFC to sign Fedor ?
Or at least have Fedor fight a current,contracted,MMA event.co sponsered by the UFC ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt

I don’t know WHO Djangoplata is,
but I know that it’s simply a gogoplata applied on you by this man -

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt[/url]

As usual,the UFC doesn’t need Fedor,nor does he need them.(to cement his legacy)
It’s wierd because I’ll hug GSP’s nuts til one of us dies.
He once stated,each time he fights he doesn’t fight as champ,but challenger, because during a title fight ,the belt is up for grabs.
Now he states he’s not fighting to be champ anymore because he is champ.
Now he fights for his Legacy.
He wants to be known as the best .

But Fedor says,assuming the interpreter and subtitles are right,he doesn’t think about legacy,P4P,or even money.
He fights cause it’s his job,he likes to fight,train,practise Sambo,and play chess with his kids.
He likes to compete.
And please don’t ask me for sources.
I watch the same shows and read the same articles and have the same internet you do-

Aw man,there’s more I wanna add to this but for now ,any thoughts?

And Ozz,we will fight again,and this time the results will be different.
Cheers man.

Furthermore, since when does high gross income automatically equate to profitability (“Zuffa Inc. has figured out how to become one of the most profitable promotions of any sport in the world”). I’m not saying they are or they aren’t but, as a private company, it is a fact that they keep their books just that… private. We don’t know how far in the red they were for all those early years. Yes, we can assume that they are doing (very) well right now but I (as well as 99.99% of the population) have no idea what their expenses are.

Make no mistake about what I’m saying. The way that Dana White and the Fertittas built their business from nothing (and you could argue from less than nothing given the anti-MMA climate at the time they purchased the company) is a great case study for any business school. To hear that their revenues have grown even during this recession while virtually every other major sport has seen declining revenues is nothing short of amazing. Taking all the emotion out, at the end of the day, this is a business, plain and simple.

I know there are a lot of Dana haters but every time I hear him speak, my respect and admiration grows for him. Do I agree with every word that comes out of his mouth or all of his actions? Absolutely not. However, it’s hard enough growing and running a business, let alone dealing with employees (fighters), customers (fans), government, competitors, etc. You’ll never make everybody happy and simply throwing money around rarely solves the problem. Where are all the other promotions that gave out obscene money to mediocre talent? Although I agree that the fighters deserve a raise (especially the guys making $3,000 per fight…WTF!), there also has to be controlled growth in order to maintain sustainability and (worldwide) growth. How can anybody argue with the majority of the decisions that Dana and Co. have made?

The fact that Fedor would set a new standard for the other fighters who Dana all claim are better P4P is thought provoking, but its nowhere near as relevant to fighter compensation as the author would have us believe. Dana has always emphasized the excitement factor when promoting fights and providing preferential status on the card. Headliners do not always equal the best fighters.

It comes down to this. Unless fighters specifically know what other fighters are getting, the UFC can do a great job of keeping the fighter salaries comparatively low.

You can also bet that Dana is doing some Scott Boras-like research on an individual fighter’s Q Rating and how that translates or does not translate into PPV dollars. A fighter better win them all if he doesn’t win them pretty. Otherwise how the hell can The Axe Murderer keep staying at or near the top of cards (and probably making great scratch as well).

One last point. Fedor is 100% unique. HE beat EVERYBODY the world had to offer for a long period of time. He is an icon in the informed MMA world. There will be no more Fedor’s because they will all need tobe in the UFC to gain that type of reputation. Fedor stands alone… in his style, his persona, his record over the last and his compensation will reflect little on others.

PS. You all have googled free UFC # whatever the night of the fight because you did not want to pay.

The UFC would get roughly half of that $85 million. So the reported fighters salaries plus bonuses would be about 5% of their PPV revenue, and that doesn’t include things like Brock’s PPV bonus.

I don’t know how you came to the salary numbers you did for the post-Fedor, and I don’t think those numbers are really relevant. It’s not like after Fedor would theoretically come in after that deal and everybody would get paid what they were worth. I’m sure many would have looked at what he was making and wanted to make more, but I don’t think their salaries would have increased that dramatically.

The only situation I could see happening would be a Tito Ortiz-like guy saying “you paid Fedor that much, why not me?” And they would hold out for a deal, they wouldn’t give it to him, and they would end up either coming back or going somewhere else where maybe they could make money, but it may not even be as much as they were making before or in the UFC’s proposed deal. And if it is, then you’d have to question how long that organization will stay around, since pretty much all of the current MMA orgs don’t have much money to throw around.

Then again, you stated it was your opinion. So we could argue it all day, but since the deal was turned down we’ll never really know.

I have always been torn about the UFC payscale but everytime they open up a new market to the sport it makes me understand it more. They are basically the only representitive of the sport of mixed martial arts……therefore, it takes a lot of effort to combat all the uneducation, critisism,developmental duties of a business they are fairly new to (general growing pains), and the decicisions to make with all the money they are getting.

You can guess at how much money they’re taking home, but at the end of the day you have to take them for face value. And at the end of the day, Dana is single handedly spreading the sport to new areas on the continant and the globe, he is doing all the interviews and taking all the heat and loaded questions designed to paint a picture of this sport, he is taking the fighters to the troops all the time and he did a couple of military shows, he won the humanitarian award from the military, he won sportsman of the year i think…..I could go on but that is enough nut huggin.

Strikeforce, DREAM, and more importantly….M-1 Global….they’re not doing much if anything to develop the sport. DREAM is purely Japan. Wow way to own a market. Strikeforce is pretty much California….not even more than a handfull of states. M-1 is like a leech that will promote any show just not on thier own….it’s like they don’t know how to. I dare them to do a show on thier own, it would be awfull.

My point is a bit overstated at this point but I think the UFC has earned my respect and support….I have not given it to them. As long as they stay as strait shooters….I see no harm in them. They’re definately a good thing. Besides, sometimes when we debate things, we kind of turn to the same old techniques and come back to the same old points. Dana will cut the crap and make himself clear without sugarcoating anything. And I love it. A guy who deals with all the ignorance that he does, needs a bit of an edge.