After about three months, lots of promises, and zero fights, Shakur Stevenson's time with Zuffa Boxing has come to an end. It just wasn't working out, was the gist of Stevenson's explanation.
"I've been working my ass off, staying focused, staying in shape," Stevenson said in his announcement of the news. "I've been in camp for like eight weeks preparing for fights that I was told was going to happen, and it has not happened."
So he asked to be released, he said. Over the weekend, Zuffa Boxing granted him that release. Now he's a free agent, looking to book his own fights through his own promotional company.
That has to be a little bit of a mind-bender if you're a UFC fighter, right? Maybe not before, when boxing and MMA were totally separate sports with no major links between the two industries. But now that TKO, the UFC's parent company, has a foot in both worlds? It's probably hard not to notice some of this stuff.
We know the discrepancies have already gotten the attention of some fighters. UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland appeared to reference Conor Benn's hefty $15 million Zuffa Boxing contract when explaining his frustrations with UFC pay. And as soon as word broke that one TKO property had seen fit to grant a fighter his release, it took no time at all for Jake Paul to suggest extending that same courtesy to the MMA side of the business.
This shouldn't surprise us. MMA fighters have been eyeing those boxing payouts for years. But what they're starting to get a sense of now is the difference not just in the number of zeroes on the paycheck, but in overall contractual freedom. That's big, because while one allows you to buy a better class of luxury car with your earnings, the other gives you permission to dream of an entirely different future.
Take the middleweight champ Strickland, for instance. As UFC CEO Dana White was quick to point out, he signed a new contract back in the spring. He had to in order to get that title fight against Khamzat Chimaev in May, which he then won.
But now he's locked into that long-term deal. And in the UFC's Paramount+ era, where there's no more pay-per-view revenue to get a cut of, it's a contract that spells out exactly what he can hope to make as champion for the foreseeable future. There's no mystery there anymore. There's no dream that, with just the right fight on just the right event, the pay-per-view money could come raining down from the sky. His potential UFC earnings are all spelled out right there in black and white, and they do not stack up favorably against the money his same parent company is offering less successful fighters in another branch of its operations.
There's also no real ability to do anything about that. He's locked in now. The rates have been set and they will not change until he fights his way through to the end of this contract or convinces the UFC to give him a new one. And if he decides to sit out and wait for a better offer, the contract and its fixed rates will wait with him. Not even retirement can change that.
For some fighters, it's that sense of limitation that bothers them as much as the difference in pay. They've worked their whole careers to reach the top of the mountain and now here they are, a UFC champ. Which is about when some start to feel that there's nowhere to go but down. Everyone wants what they have, even if it comes with a long-term contract and a cap on their earnings. This is as good as it's going to get, and somehow they always thought it would be better than this.
Imagine, then, looking over at the boxing side of the business and seeing the paydays, the contractual flexibility, the power to just ask for and receive a release to do business elsewhere. It's not like they didn't already know this was going on in the world of the sweet science. But now it feels like an in-house disparity. TKO can do all this for these other guys. So why not us?
Maybe this was inevitable. With the same company planting its flag in each of the major combat sports, maybe comparison was bound to become the thief of joy. The question is what can any of them do about it. UFC fighters always seem to bump into the same barriers. They can complain from the couch or they can suck it up and fight for the money that they're offered. The other option is a lengthy, expensive court battle, which so far no one has seen through to a satisfying conclusion.
They've more or less accepted this for years, because what else can they do? Now come these reminders that the big bosses do apparently know some other ways of going about this business — just not when it comes to anyone wearing four-ounce gloves.
That has to be a frustrating feeling. But now that TKO has a foot in every fight sports world, it might become a more common one for UFC fighters. Time will tell whether more practice at it makes it any easier for them to stomach.