we made fedor. we think fedor is a machine. he hasn’t proved it yet against #1 contender after #1 contender. he hasn’t even come close to fighting the best of the best in retaining his title. i love watching fedor, but he’s very overrated. would i love him to come to the ufc and wipe everyone out? absolutely. i think he could do it as well. could he beat? absolutely.

true, randy isn’t making 10-20 million a fight like de la hoya, or tyson from a single match..but tell me. but he’s still made close to 3 mil for 2 fights this year without any endorsement $’s included. i’m not sure if randy himself can note anyone who’s made more than that off of 2 fights. everyone keeps talking about fedor’s signing bonus but IMO that’s just all talk. it’s easy to look at randy getting paid just 250k for a fight and then see cropcop come along and get 300k for beating up eddie sanchez. what people fail to see is that cropcop doesn’t receive any backend for the ppv.

randy comes out on national TV and states that he a) didn’t get a signing bonus b) received 500k for ppv c) other fighter were getting offered more receiving more bonus

well, i saw the paystubs and not randy receive a 500k signing bonus, but his ppv bonus was off by 440k. so that’s randy coming out at his press conference on national tv and misquoting what he got paid by a whopping $1,000,000. i’d say that’s a pretty big mistake on randy’s part to miss a million dollars in checks that he signed and cashed.

the bottom line is…all rumors aside, who’s actually making more money than randy couture right now in the ufc? cro cop? big nog? chuck liddell? tito ortiz? anderson silva? anyone? i’ve heard other people comment saying that this is the breaking point and as the mma world progesses it will eventually be that fighters actually will get paid big money just like other mainstream sports. the ufc and mma are bigger now than they were before but they’re still not mainstream. and only 3 years ago, the majority of people didn’t even know who couture and liddell were. but there sports come along way since then and mma is about to explode no doubt. just 2 years ago rich franklin was the the #1 middleweight in the world and was considered one of the top spots for best p4p fighter inthe world. does anyone know what his contract was for each fight? it was 16,000 to fight and 16,000 to win. that’s 32k for the one of the best middleweights at the time.

i’m a huge fan of couture…but he’s unhappy about making more than a million per fight when no one has yet to prove that they’re making more on paper. it’s a little disappointing… the sport has come such a long way and it’s only going to get better. there’s not 1 person in the ufc that has been promoted more than randy couture. he’s coached TUF twice, commentated numerous events, and had a 3-4 special dedicated to him on spike tv. can anyone else match that on their resume? i think not.

Do is consider MMA a sport? Yes.

Do I consider the UFC a sport? No, I consider the UFC a company that is in the business of making money off the sport of MMA.

Is it almost main stream like basketball, baseball, and football? MMA is becoming more mainstream everyday, primarily through the efforts of the UFC.

But, do I consider the NFL, MLB, or NBA a sport? No. I do consider basketball, baseball, and football a sport but those organizations are businesses whose goal is to make money from the product they sell(i.e. games). The minute you start paying employees(athletes) and start charging people to watch it stops being a sport and becomes a business.

Basically anything else people do in life can basically can be broken down into two categories.

1.) If you are willing to do something and either pay to do it or get no money in return it is a hobby.

2.) The minute you do something in an effort to make money for doing it, it is now a job and no longer a hobby. Athletes say they love what they do and wouldn’t want to do anything else. That’s fine, but the real truth is that there is nothing else they would rather do at their current salary. I like my job, but there is no way I would go to work 40 hrs a week if I didn’t get a satisfactory paycheck. That makes it a job. UFC fans should look at fighters the exact same way. The fact that being an athlete takes physical skills in no way changes the fact that it is a job.[/quote]

You are right about the UFC being a business not a sport. I should have stated that better in my previous post.

Other than that I agree with what you have said but am unclear on where you stand as to my previous statements. It sounds like we are on the same page. The fighters of the UFC are employees and as I have been saying all along should be treated as such.

All will be revealed in due course no doubt.

Be nice to see Randy stand and defend his title though.

OK, I don’t know exactly how you feel about the UFC. Do you consider it a legitimate sport? Is it almost main stream like basketball, baseball, and football? I am not talking MMA in general. I am talking the UFC. It is the most notable of all MMA organizations. People who had never heard of Mixed Martial Arts know what the UFC is. It is world wide now. You ask the average everyday fan that just jumped onto the band wagon and they couldn’t tell you 3 other small organizations.

With that being said it seems to me that you do not believe this is a legitimate sport. It almost seems like you feel this is still similar to human dog fighting. I am sure you don’t feel that way but the way you explain how these fighters should be treated seems that way. I mean you are saying get over it if you don’t make more that 10 thousand dollars a fight. Where quite a bit of the money goes to training fees and who knows what else. If it is a legitimate sport then they these fighters should be treated that way.

Before baseball, basketball, and football became main stream sports their athletes were treated similarly. As soon as it became a booming business those athletes didn’t have to work second jobs anymore. It seems to me that the UFC is near that point. So getting something in place that will only help the fighters is crucial.

I also understand that there are many many other fithers out there that could fight in the UFC. You don’t think that the NBA, NFL, and MLB have the same issue. It is a business and in a business there are only a certain number of spots that that company has to fill. You can still get new fighters every year. I mean sign these guys to one year contracts. If they don’t pan out don’t resign them. It is business plain and simple.[/quote]

To answer your questions:

Do is consider MMA a sport? Yes.

Do I consider the UFC a sport? No, I consider the UFC a company that is in the business of making money off the sport of MMA.

Is it almost main stream like basketball, baseball, and football? MMA is becoming more mainstream everyday, primarily through the efforts of the UFC.

But, do I consider the NFL, MLB, or NBA a sport? No. I do consider basketball, baseball, and football a sport but those organizations are businesses whose goal is to make money from the product they sell(i.e. games). The minute you start paying employees(athletes) and start charging people to watch it stops being a sport and becomes a business.

Basically anything else people do in life can basically can be broken down into two categories.

1.) If you are willing to do something and either pay to do it or get no money in return it is a hobby.

2.) The minute you do something in an effort to make money for doing it, it is now a job and no longer a hobby. Athletes say they love what they do and wouldn’t want to do anything else. That’s fine, but the real truth is that there is nothing else they would rather do at their current salary. I like my job, but there is no way I would go to work 40 hrs a week if I didn’t get a satisfactory paycheck. That makes it a job. UFC fans should look at fighters the exact same way. The fact that being an athlete takes physical skills in no way changes the fact that it is a job.

Fighters union??? Does anyone truely understand the concept or how unions really work? Why would a union work here when it has caused problems for everyother league in professional sports? If anything a union would cause alot of issues with respect to scheduling and create havoc setting up events etc…
(”I can see how there could be scheduling issues and what not with a fighters union. There are many positives about keeping the UFC the way it is and many negatives. The same with moving to a fighters union. There is always going to be negative factors in any business decision. The thing about a fighters union is that it will assure the athletes of a yearly salary. To me this is a good thing. A lot of the up and comers can do this for a living. They don’t have to work an 8 hour day and then hit the gym for 3-4 hours to train. They can focus purely on training. Which to me makes a huge difference in any athletes performance. To me the fighters that are fighting for the UFC are the elite guys. At least that is what the UFC thinks.”)

What these fighters need to do is educate themselves with respect to contract negociations and the legalities of this business and their interests and hire good agents to represent them. The best thing for these fighters is to help promote the sport, increase its fan base and many other organizations will be born levelling the playing field and this will offer fighters better contracts and incentives Humm lets see its started with UFC, then other people caught on - King of the Cage, Cage Rage, Elite XC and now Mark Cuban has invloved himslef with HD Net (I hope I got his name correct). Give this sport 5 more years, trust me it will be different.
(”You are right it will be different in 5 years. I hope for the better. As for the contract and agent issues you are right about that as well. The problem is that getting the right agent is like hiring the right lawyer or like Forest Gump says, “life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna to get”. It is the same with an agent you may get a bad chocolate but you don’t know because you can’t see into the future.”)

For the most part, i think many people have a hate on for UFC and Dana, because they are cashing in on a good investment and solid business plan. If anything, they took all the risks and saved this sport….I dont think this website would be as popular as it is or have as many posts or new breaks if it wasnt for them reviving the organization.[/quote]
(”I definitely don’t hate Zuffa and the UFC. They have built this sport that I much enjoy watching into a juggernaut. I have a ton of respect for those guys to put it all on the line for something that they believed in. That takes balls. I make these statements because I feel that the sport may suffer if it stays as is.”)

BTW, Jason Black(another B fighter) only got paid like 8k to show for his fight at UFC 77, but he also got an extra 40k for having the most exciting fight of the night. That’s my way of saying that the UFC takes care of guys who put on good fights. Almost 50k for an undercard non PPV fight is a pretty good payday. Not everyone gets that so make sure you stand out in your fight if you want a chance to earn some extra cash.[/quote]

OK, I don’t know exactly how you feel about the UFC. Do you consider it a legitimate sport? Is it almost main stream like basketball, baseball, and football? I am not talking MMA in general. I am talking the UFC. It is the most notable of all MMA organizations. People who had never heard of Mixed Martial Arts know what the UFC is. It is world wide now. You ask the average everyday fan that just jumped onto the band wagon and they couldn’t tell you 3 other small organizations.

With that being said it seems to me that you do not believe this is a legitimate sport. It almost seems like you feel this is still similar to human dog fighting. I am sure you don’t feel that way but the way you explain how these fighters should be treated seems that way. I mean you are saying get over it if you don’t make more that 10 thousand dollars a fight. Where quite a bit of the money goes to training fees and who knows what else. If it is a legitimate sport then they these fighters should be treated that way.

Before baseball, basketball, and football became main stream sports their athletes were treated similarly. As soon as it became a booming business those athletes didn’t have to work second jobs anymore. It seems to me that the UFC is near that point. So getting something in place that will only help the fighters is crucial.

I also understand that there are many many other fithers out there that could fight in the UFC. You don’t think that the NBA, NFL, and MLB have the same issue. It is a business and in a business there are only a certain number of spots that that company has to fill. You can still get new fighters every year. I mean sign these guys to one year contracts. If they don’t pan out don’t resign them. It is business plain and simple.