Dana White has yet again been accused of not paying his fighters enough. But why? MMA fighters really put in a lot of effort and often, a lot of money into preparing for their fights. Champions are no different. So what made this former champion want to leave the UFC?
In a recent conversation, Tyron Woodley recently sat down with MMA phenom, Demetrious Johnson. And here, he had so much to say about the same issue Dana White is still haunted by after so many years. Fighter pay. Woodley was sure that he was being paid just as much as yet another fighter who was never a champion. Who was it?
Tyrone Woodley was frustrated with Dana White
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On MightyCast with Demetrious Johnson, Woodley told everyone about not being paid enough. He was sure he knew all the figures for fighter pay, and even though he was a champion who defended his title 4 times, he was not being paid enough. In fact, he was being paid just as much as Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.
Cerrone was a brilliant fighter in his own right. However, he was never a champion of the division. The fighter reported that Cerrone was being paid about $350,000 at the time.
“I was going to leave the UFC after (fighting) Darren Till,” Woodley recalled his 2018, UFC 228 bout. “I told them, ‘F*cking cut me, dog. Ya’ll don’t want me here. Why ya’ll keep holding on to me, dog?’ We (kept) fighting and sh*t every fight because you know how I was. I was a gorilla. … I knew the numbers so well. I knew what everybody was making. I’m not finna go out there and be making the same as ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.”
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Interestingly, the conversation was being had with none other than Demetrious Johnson himself. A fighter so bestowed with gifts that he can pull of an armbar mid-air to finish the takedown into a successful submission. And yet, Dana White had no love for him either.
Even Johnson had a rough time in the UFC!
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Everyone knows the story with ‘Mighty Mouse’. He was the champion of a less popular division at the time. The flyweight men’s division was not seeing a lot of acceptance in the general public. Johnson claimed that he had to fight and win three title defenses to finally get a champion’s contract and never was he allowed to have pay-per-view points. And that can make all the difference.
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For instance, when Israel Adesanya lost his middleweight title to Sean Strickland at UFC 293, he made about $2.5M in pay-per-view points alone. That’s not a small number no matter who you are. And for someone of Johnson’s might to be denied the points just shows how terrible things can be for fighters.
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What do you think about the fighter pay issue in the UFC? Let us know in the comment section below!