Tito Ortiz: In His Own Words, And Mine
Published by on May 30th, 2008 in Operation Cleanup

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By Charles Jay

Well, now that Tito Ortiz is about to embark on this post-UFC world, I thought it might be useful to get a sense of his perception of this industry and his place in it. I know he’s been a critic of the UFC – a severe critic in fact – and while he makes good points, as I have referred to in previous pieces, i have been around long enough to know that fighters often see things only one way. And it is never from the perspective of the promoter. When a fighter leaves his “comfort zone,” sometimes there’s a whole new outlook on things.

So I took a few quotes out of a recent interview Ortiz did with the magazine MMA Worldwide; statements that are more or less “evergreen” in nature, meaning they were not necessarily going to be affected by his latest, and final, fight in the UFC, which resulted in the loss to Lyoto Machida. My comments relative to his quotes are underneath.

ORTIZ: “A fighter just starting out can make anywhere from $2000 to show and $2000 to win which doesn’t even cover food for training camp!”

Well, I’ve got news for him. It’s something called “paying your dues” and that’s the price that goes with starting a career. And I’m surprised he’s not in touch with it. If it was easy everybody would do it. Boxers fight for short money all the way up the ladder; never enough to pay the rent, and they have to take “straight” jobs to make ends meet until they can get to a point where they can even make $2000, which is usually associated with a high-line six-round or medium-range eight-round fight. Of course, they do it because it is understood that they HAVE TO. If Ortiz’s numbers are correct (and I have reason to believe they are), novices in the UFC have it comparatively easy. When Ortiz first came along, he didn’t have to wade through a lot of contenders before getting his shot at making real money. So what does he, or other fighters in his situation, have to complain about?

ORTIZ: “I personally make about $210,000 per fight plus the revenue of the pay-per-view and that’s not guaranteed, so if the pay-per-view is horrible, then I make nothing but the $210,000. The UFC will end up clearing anywhere from $10,000,000 to $30,000,000! It’s just one of those things that I see as a fighter that’s been in this game for over 11 years and it shows how nothing is given back to us fighters.”

There is some intellectual dishonesty in that statement. Not necessarily about the UFC revenues; that’s a wide scale he laid out and it could be anywhere in between all that. What I’m talking about is where he says ‘it shows how nothing is given back to us fighters’. Well, in fact it is, if he’s telling the truth about getting a cut of the pay-per-view. There is plenty given back, but it’s contingent upon the drawing power of the athlete. In other words, if you put asses in the seats, you are going to get paid more. If you do NOT put asses in the seats, your market value is diminished. Thus, if the pay-per-view is “horrible,” Ortiz isn’t entitled to much of anything, is he? And if there IS a big pay-per-view, as many have with his involvement, he needs to make sure he’s taken care of. If he is as much of a “businessman” as he describes himself elsewhere in the interview, he would’ve negotiated a better back-end deal for himself, and if he didn’t, not only is that no one’s fault but his own, but it doesn’t say much for what he can do for himself in his post-UFC career.

ORTIZ: “For a company in this business to move forward, you have to push the superstars rather than make the president a superstar; if the superstars make money, then the company earns more.”

Well, yes and no. Stars drive the game more and more as time passes. But the UFC has not only pushed its brand, it has managed to overcome some of the conventional wisdom of a lot of people who watch the pay-per-view business by putting the brand up front and making it more important than the participants. Fighters enjoy the benefits of signing with this machine but complain when they find out the machine is bigger than they are. Dana White was simply following the lead set forth by likes of Eric Bischoff and Vince McMahon in professional wrestling, and it has worked for him and, presumably, the organization. At this point, there is no excuse for fighters not putting themselves in a better bargaining position from the start, because there are more entrants in the field; more viable outlets they can sign with and assert their worth. This isn’t softball. No one gives you anything. You have to TAKE it.

ORTIZ: “The UFC isn’t going to let me grow anymore, and to grow, I need to go somewhere else….If I do go to Elite XC, maybe they’ll hear me out and understand my business model.”

I see a bit of a contradiction there. If it’s really HIS business model, he doesn’t need an Elite XC, or HDNet, or Golden Boy. He needs investors to make this his independent promotion. But he’s still invoking brand names, isn’t he, as if that is what is going to drive the engine anyway. For someone decrying the branding practices of promoters he’s showing quite a bit of brand awareness in that regard. Somewhere along the line the fighter must understand that he’s going to make an amount of money that is relative to his drawing power. That’s the strength of making a back-end deal on a pay-per-view, and I mean potentially for both sides. It’s a perfect “put up or shut up” proposition. Why do you think promoters in both boxing and mixed martial arts, on the local levels, give fighters tickets, often in lieu of purse money? Because if people really want to see them, they’ll buy the tickets from them. Fighters who want to be the brand have to BE THE BRAND, if you know what I mean.

ORTIZ: “I had so many things against me growing up where I should’ve failed; I should’ve been in prison, I should’ve been a drug addict. I should’ve been dead, and I was able to persevere and achieve what I have today.”

And we commend him for that. Don’t think we don’t wish him the best of luck. But the learning curve is about to start all over again.