If the timing had been right, Ronda
Rousey would have made her return to mixed martial arts under
the
UFC banner.
During a press conference to promote her upcoming bout with
Gina
Carano, Rousey said that the initial plan was to book the bout
as part of the UFC’s last pay-per-view event under the ESPN
broadcast deal this past December. However, that timeline didn’t
work for Carano, and when the UFC moved away from a pay-per-view
model as a result of its new media rights deal with Paramount, the
fight moved to a new platform. Now, Most Valuable Promotions will
stage
Rousey vs. Carano, and the bout will mark the first MMA event
on Netflix on May 16.
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“I knew that we could promote this on our own and probably be the
most lucrative way to go about it for us, but I have such love and
respect for Dana that I wanted to bring this to him first,” Rousey
said at the presser. “I said, ‘I know I can do this on my own, but
I would rather fight for you than to fight for me, just make it
make sense for me.’ And originally we were going to do it New
Year’s and it was going to be the last fight under the pay-per-view
model and he offered me the best pay-per-view structure ever and I
was so grateful, but then Gina said she needed more time to get in
the best shape possible and that she wanted me to fight the best
version of herself and I think that was fate. It was meant to be.
It was meant to push us onto the other side and once they moved
into the streaming model, it’s just not about putting on the best
fights possible anymore.”
Rousey echoes complaints lodged by many in the MMA community
recently: That the UFC has less incentive to put on the best fights
possible thanks to guaranteed money from Paramount. The Olympic
judoka also claimed that UFC athletes today are struggling more
financially than they did in the past. While the UFC recently
raised post-fight bonuses from $50,000 to $100,000, there hasn’t
been any indication that fight purses have increased. Fighter pay
came under even more scrutiny when Zuffa Boxing, which is owned by
the same parent company as the UFC, paid Conor Benn $15 million for
a one-fight deal.
‘They’re Thinking About Shareholders’
“It used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in
combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly and now it’s one
of the worst places to go,” Rousey said.. “It’s why so many of
their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s
why their champions like Valentina [Shevcheko] are selling pictures
of their titties on OnlyFans. These people, a lot of them at the
ground level, they can’t support their families. They’re living
poverty-level fighting full-time. This company just got $7.7
billion dollars. There’s no reason that they can’t afford to pay
their athletes at least a living wage and not even that, to at
least be able to match what these athletes are making in other
sports.
“Why would they expect to get the best athletes and the best
inspiring kids that want to be something into MMA? Why not go into
football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? So
they’re bleeding talent because of their short-term greed. They’re
thinking about the next quarter. They’re thinking about the
shareholders. They’re not thinking about their responsibility to be
stewards of the future of the sport.”
Rousey made it clear that her criticism of the UFC is based more on
what she preceives as the philosophy of the TKO Group Holdings
ownership group than anything to do with White.
„Most of my criticism of the UFC now is because Dana isn’t the
owner and he isn’t calling the shots, and he isn’t running things
the way he wants because he’s an employee of the company now. He’s
not the owner,” Rousey said. I think it was a big mistake of theirs
to not let him run the company the way he always has.”