Brendan Allen scored a big win over Christian Leroy Duncan in the main event of UFC Vegas 122 on Saturday night. The fourth ranked middleweight defended his spot and put himself one win away from a likely shot at the belt. The belt is currently being held by Sean Strickland.
And Sean Strickland doesn’t sound like he wants to fight in the Octagon anytime soon. The current champ was all over social media last week saying he was unhappy with what he was earning in UFC and that he was tempted to “nuke” his contract and find a way to pivot to boxing.
This sparked a big reaction from Nassourdine Imavov, who is considered the next contender to fight Strickland for the title. Imavov even ambushed Strickland at the UFC Performance Institute last week to try and force through a fight.
After his big win on Saturday, Allen was asked about Strickland (someone he lost to very early in his UFC career). Allen, choose his words carefully, but did say he respected Strickland for raising the issue of fighter pay.
“Hey man, at the end of the day, you’ll never hear me bitch about my pay,” said Allen. “But I’d love to have more money. who here isn’t going to want to have more money? so, the guys that don’t need to fight, but back to speak up, and make those stances for more money … God bless you. I wish I could do that. But I’m happy. But, like I said, I’m just a dumb f**king redneck from Louisiana.”
Allen continued to talk about the situation and, in real-time, you could see him walking a tight-rope between honestly expressing his opinion over the low rate of fighter pay and the fear of consequences for doing so.
“I’m happy with what I get paid,” Allen enforced. “I’m doing shit people wish they could. There’s many people where I’m from that wish they could make what I make [and] do what I do. So I’m very thankful. I don’t want to feel like I’m greedy or something like that.“
Getting paid what you’re worth is not greedy. With the UFC being valued at $7.7 billion by Paramount and with Dana White wagering million dollar stakes on single hands of baccarat, fighters — as a whole — must be worth a lot more than they are getting paid right now. Allen’s demure way of talking about money goes to show how well the hurt-business has done at convincing fighters that they don’t have real jobs and are just lucky to be here.
Despite not wanting to upset the apple-cart — something Sean Strickland, for all his controversies, is not afraid to do — Allen did utter a very gentle critique at the pay situation.
“But hats off to Sean for speaking up for trying to get more money because if you look at the scope of things, based on the statistics that are out there, we are underpaid.”
Allen quickly walked back his statement, though.
“But f**k that, I’m not trying to get cancelled. At least from the bosses, I like my paycheck. They know I like my paycheck. I need that shit. My car collection’s still growing. My house still growing. I didn’t mean nothing by it, Hunter [Campbell]. I apologize.”
That was pretty sad. For every Strickland, there’s probably a lot more Allens. And the result of that will be that no one in four ounce gloves gets any more money anytime soon.