Lately, the UFC has had trouble keeping its fighters happy with their pay. Many fighters are displeased with their paychecks and most have been open about it.
Some of the top fighters have threatened to leave the company, due to the unfair treatments, while other keep their mouth shut fearing suspension or worse.
Interim UFC featherweight champion, Jose Aldo, has often been talking about forming a fighters union but hasn’t yet made a firm decision. As the UFC is a very powerful sports league, only someone as influential as superstars like Georges St-Pierre or Conor McGregor can lead the union.
However, the ‘Cowboy’ of the UFC, Donald Cerrone realises the need for one and has happily stated his desire to lead one.
During a discussion, regarding this issue, with Tim Kennedy and Derek Brunson on BFM Branch, Cerrone shared his thoughts:
“I’ll headline [a union]. I’m with you guys. We need the union. I’ve talked about this many times, I think we need strong fighters and popular fighters that can headline and let everyone know that it’s okay, that we need: not only better pay, but we need dental, we need medical. And what happens if you get hurt? Where is your 401K? Where is anything? Every other sport in the world has a union.”
As Cerrone points it out, the medical benefits for the fighters in the UFC aren’t really helping them. Dana White has previously stated that the UFC has nearly 400 employed fighters and it’s not possible to track each and every one.
“It’s not fair to what we are doing, because like I told you the other day, if you were Derek Brunson playing football or baseball, you’d be a 10 million dollar a year guy at least. At least. And why are you not right now? Because we don’t have a union, because if Derek Brunson doesn’t fight, but this guy will just because, ‘oh, it’s the UFC! I’ll do it for $2,000’, continued Cerrone.
In the fight business, anyone is willing to fight in the UFC as it’s the biggest MMA promotion in the world. With that said if the UFC finds a fighter who is willing to fight for low pay at the highest level of the sport’s competition, the company reportedly takes advantage of that.
“We need league minimums,” Cerrone added.
“We need everything. We need to pay our dues. It's not only pay, it’s so much deeper, what needs to be happening with the union. When it comes, I’ll be on the front lines saying, ‘I’m Cowboy, I’m f***ing pro-Trump and pro-union.”
Most of the sports league like the NFL, MLB, NBA all have union amongst the professional athletes, but in an individual participant sport the fact that one’s success can be the downfall of others is a huge factor that keeps any sort of union at bay.
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