Posts by stormytiger4

That’ll be around 11, so let's hope we don't crash out early. 🤣
I'm down. 🙏

The UFC main card kicks off tonight at 9 PM, and honestly, the prelims have some killer matchups too—you've got Shore, Craig, and Kirilov all fighting. Don't get too distracted by whatever's on TV or you're gonna miss the start. 😁

I’m pulling for Tom Aspinall for both of those reasons—he’s a great guy and the HW division is seriously begging for some fresh blood—but honestly, I don't see him as the favorite here. Volkov might not want to be labeled a gatekeeper, but right now, he’s looking exactly like the guy standing in the way of everyone at the top of the division.

I’m honestly dying to see this matchup just to figure out how elite Aspinall really is. He looks incredible right now, but let's be real—guys like Rozenstruik looked unstoppable too when they were basically bullying everyone in the shallow end of the Heavyweight division. But once they stepped up to face the true heavy hitters at the top, you could immediately see the gap in class. Even with Reem, where he managed to pull off a knockout after trailing until the final minute, and then just kept rolling. This is going to be Tom's moment of truth.

Luke Thomas sat down with John Nash, who’s easily the smartest guy in the game when it comes to breaking down fighter contracts and paychecks:
Fighter pay Q & a

It always takes me a little while to get used to a new look, so I usually wait until at least the third race before I weigh in, but I can't help myself. This Ferrkan looks weird to me. It’s boxy when you see it from the side, but then from above, it’s got this totally different vibe. 😁

I can't tell if DC was overstepping his bounds here or if he's actually allowed to share this, but he mentioned that Derrick Lewis told him he's pulling in seven figures per fight. We're talking at least a million bucks. Look, I get it—that’s not exactly boxing money, but it’s a massive jump from those official payout numbers the California State Athletic Commission posts after fights out there. And keep in mind, Lewis isn't even a champ; he's just a huge star, so the UFC is clearly cutting him a decent PPV slice too.
The reason I care about this is because it proves one thing: when you're dealing with the big names, those publicly disclosed figures don't mean squat. It's not like the elite fighters are out there grinding for a measly couple hundred grand.

Yep, having that clause about being out after a year of inactivity, plus the rule that contracts can't drag on for more than five years total, definitely works in his favor. It wasn't like this before. Hardy last fought back in 2012, and then in 2021, the UFC just let him go when he asked to be released. But yeah, even nine years after his last fight, he was still technically tied down. It looks like they started fixing those issues in newer contracts around 2017. (If anyone wants to read a killer breakdown on how these contracts work, John Nash wrote a great piece here: https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2022/1/2...hanges-ufc-270). But look, you can already see them threatening him with lawsuits. The UFC might honestly be willing to drop a few million just to bury him in legal fees and squeeze out another six months or a year from him—mostly just to send a message to everyone else to stay in line.

This is a super interesting chat with Randy Couture:
https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2022/2/1...eight-mma-news

Basically, back in 2007 or 2008, Couture was in a spot pretty similar to what Frane is dealing with right now. He knows exactly where Frane is coming from, but he also knows exactly what’s coming next. If the UFC keeps running things the way they do, Frane is looking at a mountain of lawsuits designed to drain his bank account and waste enough of his time until he finally just gives in and stays.

Look, you’ve got tennis or F1 on one side, and then there's combat sports on the other. In my book, they aren't even in the same category. When you think about the grueling training camps, the endless sparring sessions, and the absolute torture of making weight, it takes a massive toll on both your mind and your body. Honestly, aside from the money, very few fighters actually want to keep competing as they get older. And when guys do decide to come out of retirement, it's almost always because they're chasing a paycheck. You really think a legend like Fedor would still be stepping into the cage if his manager hadn't cleaned him out? I highly doubt it. Or take Woodley—if he hadn't blown through all his cash on flashy cars and expensive dates, would he even be in this position? Even less likely.

To keep it brief: I am 100% in favor of paying fighters better, especially given how brutal this sport is. But let's be real—even massive pay raises wouldn't change the fact that most guys won't suddenly start fighting more often or increase their total volume just for the extra cash.

It’s honestly hilarious how Ngannou just pulled a complete fast one on Dan by announcing his surgery right now. Last year, they scrambled to set up an interim fight just because they were salty he wouldn't step into the cage within three months of grabbing the belt, and the whole MMA world was left scratching their heads. Now that Frank has unified the titles, they immediately need a new interim bout—and this time there's actually a legitimate reason for it. But since Derrick Lewis lost his interim shot and Ngannou is looking to unify, they have to figure out a way to involve two other fighters. It would be total nonsense to just pick one of them for a new interim fight right away. Basically, if Stipe or Jon Jones don't play ball, this whole thing is going to turn into a circus. You've got guys like Tom Aspinall and Tai Tuivasa just hanging around... 🤣

Frank couldn't have picked a better time for a surgery involving a massive recovery period. 🙏

Masvidal and Diaz are absolutely killing it financially. Both guys are millionaires without ever even touching a championship belt. Of course, they’d both jump at the chance to scrap with Paul, but let's be real—losing that fight would seriously tank the UFC's reputation. Look, Askren was a wrestler coming off hip surgery, and T-Wood bailed for boxing after five straight losses, but what happens if Masvidal—who was fighting for titles just two fights ago—takes an L? That would wreck the credibility of everyone else left in the division. I honestly think that's why Dan is pushing Chimaev against Diaz. Borz would eat him alive like Jack Kraven, and if he then turned around and lost to Paul, the media would immediately spin the story that he's washed too.
Frank screwed them over, and now they're paying the price. Nice one, Frank. 🙏
If Diaz had any real grit, he could do exactly what Meshaw suggested to Frank: just take the Chimaev fight, go along with his wrestling, and tap out the second he gets crushed. Then he can just call it a day.

Ranking every UFC fighter who’s ever stepped into the Octagon based on their follower counts across two major social platforms: Instagram and Twitter:

https://wwe.sacnilk.com/news/List_Of...C_on_Instagram
https://wwe.sacnilk.com/news/List_Of...ers_On_Twitter

It's basically just a list of millionaires hogging the top spots. 🙂

Look, the NBA doesn't actually work directly with the players. They don't handle individual contracts, they don't cut the checks, and they don't decide who plays whom. That's all on the teams. The league just provides the structure and the rules of the game. Because of that, NBA players actually see a smaller percentage of revenue compared to what you see in the UFC. Now, let’s not get too bogged down in organizational technicalities—I’m not claiming the UFC is some charity that overpays its fighters. I'm just saying that fighters usually start talking about profit sharing only after they arrive in the UFC and build their own massive brands.

I was reading today that Mirko Cro Cop wants to move to the UFC once he finishes his final contract fights for the Americans. The article doesn't mention money at all. My bet? It won't mention it either. If he signs a six-fight deal and dominates the first four, people will start whining that he's being underpaid (not that I'm saying he will be). Basically, the UFC builds the names, then those fighters demand more cash and try to compare themselves to Jake Paul. But here's the thing: Jake Paul built his own name first before ever stepping into a boxing ring. He wouldn't be pulling in tens of millions if he hadn't used his 20+ million YouTube followers to grab attention. Our guy Hrga is ten times the fighter, yet he isn't making anything and hasn't even landed a decent fight in years.

Then you have Kayla Harrison. She’s refusing to sign with the UFC because the money isn't hitting her numbers, and word is she’d rather spend another season grinding it out in the PFL for a relatively safe million dollars. Dan would love to sign her, but he won't pay what she thinks she's worth, and the PFL is willing to. So, fine, she won't sign and nobody wins. The guys who came in with zero name recognition and no market value signed just to get a foot in the door. And if they did, once those contracts are up, they can try to find better deals elsewhere, just like Cyborg, Anderson Silva, and maybe Francis Ngannou down the road.

So, in my opinion, the issue isn't that pay doesn't increase once a fighter becomes a star. The real issue is that mafia-style contracts force them into endless extensions, making it impossible to leave. That's what needs fixing. You get a six-fight deal, you do your six fights, and then you walk if there isn't a new deal on the table. There shouldn't be any shady clauses that extend your contract just because you turned down a fight against someone like Khamzat Chimaev.

Look, leagues and clubs operate differently. Clubs are one thing, leagues are another. The UFC doesn't really fit neatly into either category, which is my whole point—you can't even begin to compare how money gets distributed to athletes when the entire structure is fundamentally different.

Man, you really thought you did something with that joke about Dana having too many employees. 🤣 Especially since he's the guy everyone constantly calls out as a ruthless capitalist with a snake in his wallet.

Comparing different sports is a messy business. Look, you can't really compare the UFC to a single gym; it's more like comparing them to an entire league. They might look like a club, but they’ve got over 500 fighters under their roof, 400 employees, they handle all their own fight promotion, manage their own rankings, hand out their own belts, and even self-regulate when they travel to parts of the world without an MMA commission. A gym doesn't do any of that. And a league? A league is made up of tons of individual clubs that handle their own business, so the math still doesn't add up. If you try to compare the UFC to boxing, you run into the same wall. There, promoters just promote fights—they don't distribute belts and there isn't this level of self-regulation. I read somewhere that the biggest boxing promotions—excluding Showtime, since they're part of a massive organization which makes things blurry—run their whole operation with just a handful of people. We're talking two offices and maybe ten employees being the entire promotion.

Honestly, no matter how you slice it, you're comparing apples to oranges. Even if a massive outfit like Matchroom has 40 or 50 people, they're still ten times smaller than the UFC, so you can't accurately compare what percentage of revenue goes to the fighters. And even with those high percentages, the boxers on the prelims get paid peanuts. I highly doubt those promoters have taken on the responsibility of guaranteeing three fights a year for every fighter under contract. If you try to drag the NBA into this, it gets even messier. In the NBA, the teams pay the players, and the prestige comes from playing in the best league in the world, not from being part of a specific franchise. To what someone said earlier: fighters grind to get into the UFC because that's where the prestige lives, not because they want to be members of a certain gym like AT&T. Gyms are a bit like clubs, but they're a totally different beast. Plus, the UFC signs fighters, not gyms. You'll see fighters from all sorts of different promotions training at the same gym. Fighters can switch gyms while staying with the same promotion, or vice versa.

Bottom line, I don't think the payout percentage is the most important factor here, and I'm totally with danini on that. The UFC builds these fighters from scratch and handles everything. Then, once they become stars, they start screaming, "Where's my money?" Instead of focusing on revenue splits, I think fighters should focus on things like health insurance and stopping those shady, mafia-style threats that Fran and Stipa used to deal with. Contractual stuff like automatic extensions if you turn down a fight is also super problematic. There's definitely room for improvement there. But trying to turn the UFC's business model (or Bellator's, which is smaller but runs on a similar blueprint) into a boxing-style model would absolutely destroy the sport, just like it ruined boxing. Since I expect regulators will eventually step in sooner or later, we might as well enjoy it while it lasts. We'll probably be telling our grandkids stories about the days when there was one organization providing killer fights every single weekend, or at least every other.

I don't believe there are many guys actually walking away with $10k or $12k per fight. See, what California publishes are just the guaranteed purses, not the actual take-home pay. That figure doesn't include any bonuses or potential sponsorship money (and look, we know brands like Monster pay their fighters a lot). Dan has told reporters countless times to just ask the fighters how much they make—he’s basically given them the green light since they aren't under gag orders—but nobody ever really bites. I'm not defending the UFC here; even if it's a $20k minimum, that's honestly pathetic for this kind of work, and it's not like they're broke. But look, boxers on the undercards of major boxing shows make even less. Nash over at MMA Junkie did a whole series of deep dives on this. Long story short, top-tier boxers make astronomical amounts, nothing compared to top UFC fighters. But middle-of-the-pack and bottom-tier UFC fighters still pull in more than those same positions in boxing. Basically, the grinders always get screwed; the only question is whether it's the organizations or the elite fighters at the top doing the screwing. Still, if you have to be a grinder or some mediocre fighter scrapping for scraps, you might as well do it in the UFC.

There’s this super interesting little detail regarding this contract dispute. It turns out some antitrust law—call it a regulation or a ruling, whatever—basically forced the UFC's hand to let Frank walk if he wants to. We're talking a full year of inactivity or just three fights. They didn't have a loophole like that before, which is probably why Dana went absolutely ballistic after Frank's win. This time, they're actually facing the real possibility of their champ jumping ship. And honestly, even if he leaves for somewhere else, how is the next guy supposed to be marketed as the toughest man on the planet? He won't. Not if Frank takes that belt with him.

Congrats to everyone on such an intense season. Red Bull wasn't quite at that legendary level we’ve all come to expect from them, but hey, it is what it is—they still managed to outpace most of the backmarkers.
Of course, Tyler Bennett5 definitely outplayed me this year. Honestly, I feel like I’m his personal Valtteri Bottas, which explains why he hasn't kicked me to the curb yet. 😁

cosmicridge5 said:I was going to write, “Exotic, man! 😁” But honestly, looking at it again, I guess it isn't really all that exotic 😬

The only thing even remotely wild about that prediction is the idea that Sergio Perez ended up driving a literal trash can.
Look, she’s gotta be brave, you have to give her that. I honestly think there's a solid chance that at least one of those two won't even see the checkered flag. But which one? Maybe neither. It makes sense though. Nice one, vividlynx68.