{"id":532185,"date":"2026-03-11T00:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532185\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T00:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:59:11","slug":"ufc-legend-ronda-rousey-goes-scorched-earth-on-current-state-of-ufc-fighter-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532185\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Legend Ronda Rousey Goes Scorched Earth on Current State of UFC Fighter Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey did not pull any punches with her recent comments about how the UFC compensates its fighters. <\/p>\n

The first female champion in the history of the UFC, Rousey successfully defended her women\u2019s bantamweight belt six time before her stunning knockout-loss to Holly Holm that ended her title reign and preceded a layoff of more than a year. <\/p>\n

Losing her return fight against Amanda Nunes in just 48 seconds encouraged Rousey to move on from MMA and carve out a successful professional wrestling career with the WWE, but now the 39-year-old is set to make a stunning return to combat sports when she faces fellow women\u2019s MMA legend Gina Carano<\/a> in a Netflix boxing match on May 16. <\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey Sounds Off On UFC Fighter Pay<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press conference just over two months out from the fight with Carano, Rousey was asked about for her thoughts on the reports that the UFC couldn\u2019t get Jon Jones<\/a> on the summer’s planned White House card <\/a>due to financial disagreements. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be that [the] UFC was the best place you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly, and now it\u2019s no longer \u2013 it\u2019s one of the worst places to go,\u201d Rousey answered (h\/t Championship Rounds<\/a>). \u201cIt\u2019s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere, it\u2019s why their champions like Valentina [Shevchenko] are selling pictures of their ti****s on OnlyFans. These people are \u2013 a lot of them at the ground level, they can\u2019t even support their families. They\u2019re living poverty-level, fighting full time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/p>\n

Jon Jones (red gloves) reacts after defeating Stipe Miocic (not pictured) in the heavyweight bout during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Now in her second reign as the UFC women\u2019s flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko is arguably the biggest female star currently on the promotion\u2019s roster and will more than likely have something to say when she catches wind that she was used as an example in Rousey\u2019s comments about the UFC\u2019s business practices. <\/p>\n

\"Valentina<\/p>\n

Valentina Shevchenko (red gloves) reacts after defeating Zhang Weili (not pictured) in the womens flyweight championship bout during UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden. | Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Whatever Shevchenko\u2019s response may be, Rousey is on the shortlist of the biggest stars in the promotion\u2019s history and was a massive pay-per-view draw during her time with the women\u2019s bantamweight belt. \u201cRowdy\u201d also claims that there were discussions with Dana White and the UFC <\/a>regarding the Carano fight before they eventually inked a deal with Netflix. <\/p>\n

“They\u2019re Bleeding Talent Because Of Their Short-Term Greed”<\/p>\n

Fighter pay is always a hot topic in the MMA community, and Rousey went on to reference the company\u2019s lucrative new deal with Paramount <\/a>that kicked off at the beginning of this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis company just got 7.7 billion dollars, there\u2019s no reason that they can\u2019t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage\u2026Why would they expect to get the best athletes and the best, aspiring kids that want to be something, into MMA? Why not go into football, why not go into boxing? Why not going into anything else?…They\u2019re bleeding talent because of their short-term greed. They\u2019re thinking about the next quarter, they\u2019re thinking about the shareholders, they\u2019re not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"UFC<\/p>\n

UFC CEO Dana White (left) talks to President-elect Donald Trump ringside during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Particularly at the higher weight classes, many fighters on the UFC roster started their athletic careers out focused on other sports before moving on to MMA. Gable Steveson, the hottest heavyweight prospect in the sport,<\/a> tried his hand at both professional football and the WWE after his decorated wrestling career before he decided to make the jump to MMA last year. <\/p>\n

\"Ronda<\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey (left) and Gina Carano pose at a press conference for their upcoming MMA featherweight bout at Intuit Dome. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

As noted by Aaron Bronsteter<\/a>, the Rousey vs. Carano fight is scheduled to take place in California, which is a state that publically releases the fight purses for combat sports events. Rousey\u2019s comments will almost certainly draw more attention to how much she and Carano make for their fight, and UFC CEO White will presumably be asked about the UFC Hall of Famer\u2019s comments<\/a> at some point in the near future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey did not pull any punches with her recent comments about how the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-532185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}