Recently Demetrious Johnson, released a statement saying that the UFC had bullied him, and had tried to get him to sign a fight for a lower price than he wanted. He turned down the fight, and in turn had his name sorta dragged through the mud, (by the UFC and T.J. Dillashaw, the guy who he turned down the fight with) more on that HERE.
But recently, fellow fighter Daniel Cormier spoke up for ‘Mighty Mouse’ and said that the UFC should pay him as the top-tier fighter that he is.
Here’s the good stuff.
“UFC, if you want Demetrious Johnson to fight T.J. Dillashaw, give him the money,” Cormier recently said on ‘UFC Tonight.’ “Pay him $1 million and say, ‘that’s your fight.’ I know it’s a lot for a 125-pounder, but the guy’s the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Pay him the money, and then let him go fight…. Pay him as the No. 1 fighter in the world for once.”
“I think the responsibility for everything can be shared between Demetrious and the UFC,” Cormier said. “UFC really doesn’t understand how to market him, because they have to get creative. He’s smaller. He’s not the biggest guy. He’s dominant. Even when Anderson Silva was the guy running through his division, his points weren’t very high, so they have to get creative. I don’t know if they’ve gotten creative. But, I do believe DJ has done his part.
Then he went into some… Other stuff… When I say other stuff, I mean race stuff, it’s a subject that other fighters have touched on in the past, although DC does in a bit of a different way than others (Tyron Woodley) have, let’s listen in.
“Honestly as an African-American, you have to market people differently,” Cormier added. “There is a different demographic and I don’t know if DJ really fits neatly into any certain one. Because just his family and everything, everything combined, you gotta get tricky marketing these small guys, especially an African-American guy. So the UFC doesn’t really know how to do that yet with him.”
Heck, it was only a couple months ago that Kevin Lee ‘The Motown Phenom’ was saying quite a similar thing. Here’s his take on it:
“Look, I had these same conversations with UFC, and I’m just letting you know because I’m talking to you right now. But I’ve let them know how I feel, that’s just how I am. I’m not one of these fighters that is going to pussyfoot around. Me and Joe (Silva) have had arguments, he’s called me a whole bunch of names, and I called him a whole bunch of names. But, I understand, the same reason you do it, is the same reason UFC does it, it’s hard to promote a black fighter. They haven’t broken into the African-American market. So, they don’t want to go all in on it because they don’t know if they are going to get their return. It’s a business just like any other. They are not racist, they are not this other shit, they are just about the money. Detroit, Philly, Chicago, St. Louis, they just don’t bring the money in for the UFC to go all in on it, which I understand and is fully respectable. So that could be part of it. And like I said, I will get into a few arguments. It’s probably a mix of everything, you know.”
So what do you think?
Is race involved in the way fighters are paid?
Is it completely unrelated?
Let us know…