The biggest story in MMA last week wasn’t anything to do with UFC Vegas 122. Instead, UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland came out to trash the promotion for fighter pay, even threatening to walk away from his title, among other things.
So, let’s talk about Sean Strickland’s change of tone, and whether it will change anything.
Sean Strickland speaks out
With Strickland’s recent remarks about the UFC not paying enough for fighters to walk away it got me thinking. It took the UFC a while to break down and provide their fighters with health insurance. Do you ever foresee them eventually breaking down and setting up a retirement fund/pension for tenured UFC fighters (10 or more fights in the UFC or something like that)? They make enough $ to set up something if they chose to.
This is a fair question, but unfortunately, I think the answer is simple: no. I do not think there is anything any single fighter could do that would substantively change how the UFC operates.
First, let’s discuss Strickland specifically. While Strickland is not everyone’s cup of tea, the man undeniably has a point about fighter pay. We don’t have to rehash the whole argument, but it’s pretty simple: the UFC pays fighters around 18-20 percent of revenue, which is a pittance compared to most other major sports leagues. Considering the product literally doesn’t exist without them, only the most ardent capitalist could view that as equitable.
But what can Strickland do? The answer is nothing. UFC contracts and business practices are extremely restrictive. Allegedly, the promotion would only allow Strickland to fight for the title if he signed a new six-fight contract, which he did. That means Strickland is locked in for five more bouts, and those contracts are ironclad. His only way out is to fight, and when the promotion controls who, when, and where you fight, they can make it hurt. The only option he has is to not fight, or to just say yes, and neither is appealing.
So for as much as Strickland may buck, it won’t get him anywhere. Even if he goes through with the plan he teased and simply tries to make things too ugly for the UFC to want to deal with him, I’m skeptical that will work. The UFC has ZERO interest in letting Strickland go box or fight Jake Paul. And besides, if Strickland could just get on a mic and say something terrible and he got fired over it, that sets the precedent. Next thing you know, Paulo Costa and every other fighter who has pay issues follows suit.
And from a macro sense, I think there’s no chance this changes anything, because if the UFC wanted to pay fighters more, or provide pensions, or anything else, they’d do it. This is not a company that lacks for funds. They could start a pension program tomorrow, and it would barely register on the bottom line, but that’s not where their interests lie.
For one, fighters are “private contractors,” and the UFC is deeply interested in keeping things that way, for myriad reasons. For another, why do companies offer benefits to employees? It’s to attract high-quality people to come work for them. The UFC already owns MMA; almost all the best fighters already want to compete there. There’s no reason to offer fighters a pension other than basic empathy, and frankly, that’s not in the business model.
So, should the UFC do this? Of course. Dana White often says that the UFC isn’t competing with other MMA orgs, it’s competing with the NBA, the NFL, and other leagues, so it would be nice if the UFC made any attempt to operate like those leagues when it comes to athlete welfare, but that’s just not who they are. Pensions will only be added to the UFC when the fighters organize and demand it, which means it’s never going to happen.
Hypothetical
After watching the recent Dark Side of the Cage: Conor vs Khabib, and seeing RDA on the most recent UFC card, how does the trajectory of the UFC change had RDA fought Conor?
MMA math has Alvarez beating RDA then losing to Conor. But it also has RDA easily defeating Diaz who beat Conor.
I’m sure it won’t shock you to learn that this is a question I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, even before you asked it. Of course, we’ll never know the real answer, but there are only two outcomes, and I’ll run through the hypothetical for each.
RDA wins. Conor can’t claim BS and has to go back to 145 pounds. He probably beats Frankie Edgar in his first title defense. Then it’s a rematch with Aldo, and despite how that went the first time around, he and Aldo is a 50/50 proposition. Then, if he makes it to a Max Holloway rematch, Holloway dirts him.
But honestly, by then he might move up because 145 was killing him to make, and with a pair of title defenses under his belt, he’d be looking to chase the big game again. But he never fights Floyd, so MMA stays a little bit smaller, and is probably worse off overall. That being said, we also don’t end up with the era of every fighter trying to box or become double-champs, which would be a nice consolation prize. Also, Nate Diaz never blows up (he was popular, but he just stays that way), and we never get a BMF title.
Conor wins. The timeline stays basically the same as what happened, including that Nate never fights Conor, and we never get a BMF belt as a result. But where it gets interesting is this: UFC 196 was on March 5. The UFC didn’t announce the WW title fight between Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley until May. Instead of fighting Floyd, which could still have happened next, maybe Conor pushes to fight Robbie Lawler for the WW title. Remember, at the time, Woodley was not a clear-cut challenger. He was coming off a split decision win and had not fought in over a year.
Now, Robbie beats the absolute piss out of Conor, but that’s just a fun “what could have been” moment, and it also leads to a lot of questions at lightweight. If Conor fights for the welterweight title, does he ever come back to fight Khabib? Does Eddie ever win a title? Lots of interesting possibilities.
For what it’s worth, I always favored RDA in a fight with Conor, but by no means would I say he was a lock to win. I’d have put it at 60-40 in RDA’s favor.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them there, and I’ll answer the best ones in the Mailbag and try to get to the rest in the responses.