Given new bonus revelations, it’s time for commissions to make UFC salaries more transparent
Published by Zach Arnold on December 1st, 2009 in Current Events

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If you think that the awful, spotty officiating that we’ve seen in high-profile MMA bouts over the past couple of years should alarm bosses on powerful state athletic commissions, then maybe you will find that this next problem should also alarm them in a big way.

Perhaps like the first problem, commissions will probably ignore this one, too. And sooner rather than later, you may wonder when there will be enough outcry from fans and fighters for MMA to get its own version of The Ali Act like Congress passed in the States in 2000.

On the Tuesday morning edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Yahoo Sports MMA writer Dave Meltzer was asked an e-mail question about why Anthony Johnson was listed as only making $17,000 as a semi-main event fighter on the UFC 106 PPV against Josh Koscheck. Meltzer, to his credit, gave a long, but honest answer as to how the $17,000 was more or less dishonest and not totally kosher,

“But the thing that a lot of people don’t realize is when they do those numbers, when it comes to UFC pretty much everybody gets bonused. I mean, even the guys who go out there and put on an absolutely crappy fight are still going to get bonused like $5,000.

I mean like I know just an example of one guy who um put on an absolutely terrible fight, just wouldn’t fight, you know not Kalib Starnes I bet you he didn’t get bonused, but he’d be like the only one. But anyway, but this guy was better than Kalib Starnes but not much but he put on a terrible fight, got cut, and he still got bonused $5,000. And most guys are getting you know, I know a guy another guy who um whose pay is listed was listed for a fight at $14,000, he made $100,000 and he didn’t win any Best Match bonus or Best Knockout bonus. They were just very happy with him, so the point is is that these guys make um they make more than is listed, sometimes considerably more than is listed so, um, was you know is $17,000 for a semi-main eventer too little? Absolutely. Um, but you know if Anthony Johnson now I don’t know that he got more than $87,000 total, but if he did not get that bonus I would be pretty darn sure that he would have gotten you know a lot, a lot more than $17,000, put it that way you know probably I mean I don’t even want to estimate but way more than $17,000 if he hadn’t gotten bonused. I don’t think that, I pretty much like um you know during the shows and stuff you know I kind of know about where they’re leaning, they don’t even think about that stuff like you know who’s not getting paid a lot when it comes to bonuses, I mean it’s just… Ultimately it’s [Dana White's] decision, um it’s essentially Dana, Joe Silva, and Lorenzo Fertitta as a group but at the end you know Dana’s like the Alpha (male) you know what I mean, so like um there was like when I’m trying to remember which one it was but um it might have even been that one where Dana was just like, Dana just he loved that Josh Koscheck/Anthony Johnson match, just loved it! So, um, you know, so Koscheck got the double bonus, you know, so um that’s the deal, I mean I don’t know I mean to me and being there live I thought Forrest Griffin and Tito had the best fight and I thought the best submission was Kendall Grove but whatever! You know, I mean that was Dana’s call.”

The bonus issue has long been a bone of contention for MMA insiders, writers, and hardcore fans who have seen how Zuffa LLC (the parent company of UFC) does business. In my opinion, the bonus system is more or less a bonus to the promoters more so than the fighters. Why? The bonus system is about control. It’s a method of keeping egos in check, of trying to limit fighters from heading to other fight promotions. It’s akin of an “honor system” in fighting.

Frankly, it stinks.

The way UFC uses bonuses to pay off fighters came to light in a big way a couple of years ago when the organization had a very public feud with Randy Couture. Couture talked about shower room bonuses and UFC in turn produced receipts showing how much they paid Couture in bonuses. It got ugly very fast and it revealed a really hideous side of the business.

Josh Gross, the current Sports Illustrated writer who wrote for Sherdog.com in 2007, wrote the following paragraphs when Couture and UFC publicly had their feud:

“And he asked why an “off the books” bonus wasn’t offered following a three-round war against Gabriel Gonzaga during which Couture had his arm broken blocking a high kick.

Such bonuses are a regular UFC practice to disperse non-guaranteed money to fighters at the promotion’s discretion. Though “off the books” implies tax free, Couture clarified that the bonuses are declared money.

So instrumental are these bonuses, which have been as high as $1 million, that after Sean Sherk and Hermes Franca tested positive for steroids in July, White said future bonuses would be withheld until drug results were received; any fighter positive for drugs would forfeit his right to one.

“For some of the athletes it’s standard practice,” said Couture, who revealed he was given a $500,000 bonus for the third Liddell contest in February 2006 as well as for the Sylvia fight in March of this year. “You come to expect that. A lot of the marquee guys that are selling pay-per-views and putting butts in the seats get those bonus checks. Certainly we’re happy to get the extra money, but it’s at their discretion. … It makes a big difference in my pay.”

Two years after Couture lost the PR war with UFC and is still feeling the repercussions from what happened in the financial feud, UFC is continuing to use the bonus system in a big way. Not only is there little to no media scrutiny, but there’s been no scrutiny at all by the athletic commissions. We’ve seen what Keith Kizer and the Nevada State Athletic Commission have done in terms of doing business with UFC — the bare minimum that is required by law, but unlike Armando Garcia when he ran the California State Athletic Commission no one has really stood up to UFC in terms of their business practices. No one has stopped them yet and no one seems interested in doing so.

After UFC 100 where Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir shattered PPV buy rate records, we have heard less about PPV bonuses for fighters and more about the “traditional” UFC bonuses like the locker room/shower room bonus. With PPV business and live gate attendance starting to get cold for the promotion, the use of the bonus system to ‘reward’ fighters and make sure disruptions don’t flare up is now more critical then ever. We know the promotion is playing hardball with Dan Henderson, who is currently a free agent and according to UFC wanted a similar deal to the one the company gave Tito Ortiz last July. At a time when UFC announces broad expansion plans and new dates booked for states that approve MMA legislation, it should be in the best interest of these athletic commissions and power brokers in new markets to demand for more transparency instead of simply taking whatever cash they can make from UFC and let the status quo remain.

Sports fan hear about athletes who get bonuses based on reaching certain performance benchmarks, but those bonuses are often contractually written and agreed to by all parties. We hear time and time again from UFC President Dana White how MMA is a legitimate sport and how UFC is going to surpass hockey and boxing and whatever else he can name, but all of those sports have athletes who are given more financial protection than what is currently happening in the MMA landscape. In a way, you can understand why UFC is continuing to use a manipulative bonus system with talent — if the media wants to continue to fawn for them on a daily basis and at press conferences and if athletic commissions continue to just take UFC’s money per show and not ask any questions, then what’s the incentive for UFC to stop the practice and to run a different type of operation? It’s time for the pencil pushers in various state capitols to start acting more to help protect fighters than to act like toll booth collectors taking whatever promotions give them for cash in these tough economic times.