Former UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture has claimed he was paid just $20,000 for winning two fights on the same night for UFC 13. UFC 13 was hosted on May 30, 1997, in Augusta, Georgia where Couture was invited to a heavyweight tournament, that he won by defeating Tony Halme in the semi-final and Stephen Graham in the final.
Reminiscing about the day with former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch, Couture says,
“In the spring of 97, I am ready to go to Puerto Rico to wrestle for the Greco team… the US Greco team in the PanAms. And I got a call saying, ‘hey, you’re on our alternate list for a heavyweight tournament in 3 weeks. We have trouble filling up a spot. Do you want to fight?’ And I was was like, ‘Hell yeah, I wanna fight’. “
This was Couture’s first experience working with the UFC. When Welch asked him if he was happy to fight twice on the same night for 20 grand, Couture explained that he was since it was a different time back then.
“I never really saw those guys till we stepped on the scale in the lobby at the Holiday Inn… Two giant guys, Tony Halme was 300 lbs, Stephen Graham was 290 lbs. These two giants and I was like, ‘what the hell did I get myself into?”
Couture also laughed and revealed that there more fights in the stands that night than there were in the cage.
Couture sure does have some good memories while working with the UFC. But how it did all become sour? And the answer is always- Fighter pay!
Couture’s problem with the UFC and Dana White
After White became the president of the company in 2001. And right off the bat, the company wanted to own the ancillary rights of the fighters in perpetuity.
There’s a lot of legal jargon in there but it essentially means that the UFC would have a cut out of everything Couture ever did. If he starred in a film, the producers would need UFC’s permission. If Couture featured in a video game, the UFC would also get paid.
Naturally, the former heavyweight champion didn’t want to sign his future to the company and was eventually exiled for it.
He has since been advocating for better pay for the fighters and medical insurance for the fighters.
In 2012, UFC’s then-chairman Lorenzo Fertitta had claimed that the fighter pay in UFC was “not far off what the other sports leagues pay as a percentage of revenue”. During an interview with ESPN, when he was told that the NFL, NBA, and MLB shared 50% of their revenue with their athletes, he had asserted that the UFC operated in the same ballpark.
But a later study, which was unsealed as a part of an anti-trust lawsuit revealed that the company only paid 18.6% of its total revenue to the fighters. For context, the only other combat sport that is in the vicinity of the same global popularity, boxing, pays 62.5% of its revenue to its athletes.
Needless to say, Couture and the countless former athletes campaigning for fair pay for fighters are right! The UFC should be doing more for the guys who risk their lives so the company can make millions.
