UFC President Dana White is firing back at those who criticize fighter pay.
White has heard it all before. Many media members and some fighters have been calling for a change in pay structure. The biggest name who has expressed gripes over fighter pay is former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Jon Jones. “Bones” feels making anywhere between $8 million to $10 million to fight UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou is too low.
Even Ngannou has called fighter pay into question. White does have some supporters, however. Former UFC fighter and current ESPN analyst, Chael Sonnen, has said that White was always a huge advocate for higher fighter pay.
During an interview with Manouk Akopyan, White had the following to say about critics of fighter pay (h/t MMAFighting.com).
“The reality is anybody who’s being critical outside of the fighters themselves don’t know anything anyway. They don’t actually know what these guys are making. And the fighters don’t ever come out and tell you. There’s no gag order on any of these guys. These guys can come out at any time and tell you what they’re making. I have no problem with that. But they don’t, do they? No, they do not. So it’s sort of a Catch-22.”
Dana White went on to say that fighter pay has increased year-over-year.
“Fighter pay has continually gone up every year since we owned the business. Obviously, there’s been tons more opportunities with the outfitting policy, some of the sponsors that we’ve brought in that spend tons of money with the fighters too. There’s a lot of opportunity here for the fighters. And listen, there’s never gonna be a guy that’s coming out and saying, ‘Yeah, they’re paying me too much. They’re overpaying me. And all of these guys that are champions share in the pay-per-view revenue.
“Listen, if you don’t like it, go start your own MMA league and pay ‘em whatever you want to pay ‘em. This is mine and this is the way we’re doing it.”
What do you make of Dana White’s latest comments on fighter pay?