Ultimate Fighting Champion President Dana White slams the pay scales in boxing while claiming that the top fighters in UFC are fairly compensated.
White has been criticized for the UFC’s compensation system for the past few years.
Some high-profile competitors spoke out against it, and YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul made it his particular mission to agitate the UFC President over the matter.
White has remained defiant, claiming that fighters are underpaid and declaring that the UFC will never change. But the issue isn’t going away with fighters like Tyron Woodley earning more in boxing than he did in his whole UFC career. The UFC president has taken a new tack: he’s added pay scale to his list of complaints against professional boxing.
“There’s always gonna be head butting,” White said on The Pivot Podcast when asked about UFC fighter pay. “Do you make enough money? Do you? I want to meet that guy that goes, ‘Oh, I’m good. I make plenty of money, I don’t need another dime.’
You’re never going to meet that guy. It’s never going to happen. Everybody wants more money. And one of the big problems with boxing too, is that all those f****** guys are overpaid, and every time they put on a fight, it’s a going-out-of-business sale. We’re just trying to get as much f****** money as we can from you guys, and then we’re out of here. We’ll see you in three years.
“You can’t build a league like that, You can’t build a sport. You can’t have 750 fighters under contract, making money, feeding their families every year, with that kind of mentality. It doesn’t work. You have to run a business.”
“if you’re the champion, you share in the pay-per-view revenue,” – Dana White on the current UFC fighter pay issue
White has had a lot of success in his career so far. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm boasted about smashing financial records.
However, this ongoing development has benefited the fighters only a little since they still only receive roughly 20% of the company’s annual revenue, a pittance compared to other sports leagues, where that figure hovers around 50%.
On the other hand, Dana White praises the UFC’s present structure, which rewards the greatest fighters in the world with pay-per-view points that help them earn more money.
“The truth is, you get some of these guys that — you can walk in and say, ‘I want $30 million dollars.’ OK, based on what? I do too. Give me $30 million. We all want $30 million, but based on what? And you’re never going to have the guys on the other side worrying about the business of the sport. Because this isn’t a team sport. … In this sport here, it’s about me. ‘I’m the biggest f****** star here. I knocked out 30 people, I did this, I did that. I want as much money as I can get. And I really don’t give a s*** about anybody else, including you, the boss that runs the business. I don’t care about this whole business. It’s about me.’
The fact that top fighters in the sport continue to talk their way into boxing contests contradicts White’s assertion that they are appropriately compensated.
After his contract expires in December, heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou appears to be headed for a super fight with Tyson Fury, while welterweight champion Kamaru Usman has repeatedly advocated for a fight with Canelo Alvarez, despite White stating categorically that he is not interested. These seem to point to a bigger wage problem than White is willing to address, but it’s all just noise to the UFC president.
