"When you have fighter's that make it up to a championship belt, their income now is dependent upon pay-per-view buys. They'll get X amount of dollars for their show money and their win money and then they will get $1, .50 cents, or maybe even $4 for every UFC pay-per-view buy. And a lot of times, it will go up, so for the first 100,000 pay-per-view buys, you get .50 cents, but the second 100,000 buys, now you get a $1," stated former UFC middleweight title challenger Nate Quarry, who broke down the beef between UFC featherweight champion Demetrious Johnson and the UFC. Check it out!
NATE QUARRY ON DEMETRIOUS JOHNSON BEEF WITH UFC:
So, when you're looking at a situation, and we're seeing this over and over and over again, where you have someone who says, "I can fight the #1 contender who nobody knows and nobody is going to buy that pay-per-view, so maybe we'll get 150,000 pay-per-view buys, but, if I call out a big name, a Nate Diaz, Nick Diaz or Conor McGregor, if I call out a Georges St. Pierre or Michael Bisping, somebody who is really going to get people buying pay-per-views, well then I just doubled or quadrupled my salary." Well then why would I give the #1 contender a title shot? I'm going to wait until I get that big payday because they can't renegotiate their contracts. They can't say, "Look, you want me to fight this #1 guy, I don't think so. If you want me to fight him, we need to renegotiate my contract." The UFC will say, "No," and that's what you're seeing with Demetrious Johnson right now. The way they do business is just so one-sided and it's always in the UFC's best interest, no matter what the deal is.
What an embarrassment for these fighters to have to beg for what's rightfully theirs. Nobody wins a playoff game and then begs to go to the Super Bowl. No, you've earned your shot. Luke Rockhold just came out and said this. He said, "This is ridiculous. We got guys who have earned their shot, but no, because Georges St. Pierre is thinking about coming out of retirement and the UFC knows that that would be a huge payday, then that's who they are going to give a completely unearned title shot to." It makes no sense whatsoever. And Luke Rockhold wasn't referring to himself. He wasn't saying, "I deserve another shot." He was just saying, "Give us a break. You gotta let us know who is actually deserving of a title shot." But the jokes on them because I believe it was the very first MMA summit that I went to, probably 12 years ago or something, somebody in the crowd asked Dana White, "Will you ever put up a ranking system so we know who deserves a title shot?" And Dana White started laughing and he goes, "I don't care who you think deserves a title shot. I put together the fights that are going to sell pay-per-views. That's all that matters." And at that time, every single fighter in the crowd was like, "Yeah, this is all about money to them. This isn't about sports; this isn't about seeing who is the best." I'm sorry to say Mr. Promoters, not only is it the most well-spoken, not only is it the best looking, not only is it the most exciting fighter that becomes a champion; that's what makes sports so exciting. If you want to be that guy that picks the guy that gives the perfect interview, has the perfect hair and perfect family life, then take up pro wrestling; that way you can manipulate the ending to every single event that you put on.
We see it over and over again where the UFC has chosen somebody to be their next representative and they throw hundreds of thousands of dollars behind this fighter and give them every opportunity; retweet all of their tweets and put them in their advertisements and tell Reebok, "This is now the face of Reebok." But what about the champion? "Screw the champion, this person looks better." But just so happens that their chosen child just isn't that good of a fighter. And then they are always scrambling, "Well geez, we put all of this money behind this fighter that is just not that good." Yeah, that's the way of sports. You're not going to be able to sit there and calculate how much money you're going to make on every pay-per-view because the most popular guy isn't necessarily going to be the champ. Maybe look at ways on how to market people that are that good. Learn how to market the people that are the champions or get out of their way and let them do it themselves. When you have a hack of a company like Reebok, who now instead of having an unlimited number of sponsors, now you have one; one company that doesn't even care enough to spell the athletes' names right. That's the company that you're choosing to be your brand ambassador? Are you kidding me? What a joke, and once again the UFC proving how poor they are at actually doing these things.
Demetrious Johnson speaking out kind of blew my mind because he was the quiet guy. He said many times, "If these fighters want to be paid more, they need to be better." Well okay, guess what brother, you're the best, you're the best in the world, so what's your key to success here? OhÂ…your key to success is the open market and the Ali Expansion Act to where you would be able to look at the new owners of the UFC and say, "Look, I believe I'm worth more. I'm going to see what Bellator has to offer me and if you don't like it and you want to keep me, then you can counter their offer. And we'll go back and forth until I find out how much I am truly worth in the world." Because that's what it really comes down to. How much is something really worth? It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Show me a Picasso at a garage sale for $30 and I didn't know it was a Picasso, geez, I wouldn't pay 30 bucks for it. But now you have this Picasso painting and you have these billionaires that want to have this in their home, it sells for $30 million. That's what the open market says. So how much is Demetrious Johnson worth? I'm guessing a lot more than the UFC is willing to pay him, but we won't know until all of the contracts are torn up because once the Ali Expansion Act passes, that $4.4 billion sale of the UFC got a whole lot more worthless. Because now all you're getting in the cage is 3 letters and 5 other contracts that you have to renegotiate.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]