Death Row MMA<\/a> show, Paul was asked about how the pay for Netflix\u2019s first-ever MMA event, headlined by Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano this Saturday in Los Angeles, compares to that of the UFC. Paul responded with a bold statement.<\/p>\n\u201cHere\u2019s what I can say: I know how much Ronda Rousey is making for this event and it\u2019s a lot more than what Ilia Topuria makes for fighting,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n
Topuria, the UFC\u2019s undefeated lightweight champion, next defends his title in a unification bout against Justin Gaethje in the main event of UFC White House on June 14. Salaries are unlikely to be disclosed for that historic show, but one can assume Topuria is being well-compensated to compete in front of UFC President Donald Trump and a number of high-ranking officials and VIPs. So Paul is setting the bar high if he\u2019s to be believed when it comes to Rousey\u2019s upcoming check beating Topuria\u2019s.<\/p>\n
As for how some of the lesser known fighters on the card are being compensated, Paul again declined to provide exact numbers, but claimed \u201cdefinitely more than the UFC by a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Masvidal retired in his hometown of Miami in 2023 following a loss to Gilbert Burns at UFC 287, but has said he is on the verge of a comeback. The 41-year-old agrees with Paul that top fighters need to be paid more, but also explained the reasoning behind the UFC\u2019s business practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the way you see it, but to be honest with you, in fighting, that 12 and 12 or when I was fighting it was, like, 4 and 4, that\u2019s still like [six times] of what you make on the regional side,\u201d Masvidal said. \u201cIt\u2019s good money if you do get there, but where we do need a dramatic change is more like when you\u2019re in the top 10, top 15 already. Because in the beginning I don\u2019t have a problem with it because you\u2019ve got to earn your keep, right? You\u2019ve got to show that you are the cream that has risen from these new signings. You know, you beat all your classmates, now you\u2019re in the better tier. That\u2019s when they\u2019ve got to start getting paid more because you get caught up in the system sometimes and then when you\u2019re in that mid-tier, sometimes those guys I feel could get compensated maybe a little better.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the guys in the beginning, we\u2019ve got to find out who\u2019s good, because you can\u2019t just be giving out the bag, right, to some dude because he\u2019s 6-0 and then you look at his record and he\u2019s fought nothing but cans. So I feel like you\u2019ve got to keep them hungry at that stage until we determine who either sells tickets or can actually fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul countered that more money would both attract better athletes and make things easier for those already in the combat sports business to focus more on training as opposed to having to treat fighting as a side gig.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the difference is it would create better talent and better fighters because they wouldn\u2019t have to be working other jobs in between training sessions,\u201d Paul said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the argument back there is it would actually grow the sport in the long run if these people making the minimum pay didn\u2019t have to go be a teacher or a janitor or work for UPS, all of that stuff. It would actually make more talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Masvidal\u2019s next move, he joked with Paul that they should work out a deal for him to work with MVP soon, but he is still under contract with the UFC. Masvidal was cryptic as to what lies in the works for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m still with them, we\u2019ve been talking for a little bit,\u201d Masvidal said of the UFC. \u201cWe\u2019re going to say the news I don\u2019t know when, but we\u2019ve got some things we\u2019ve been working on cooking, we\u2019ve just got to wait for some people to sign contracts, but I think we\u2019ve got something big already pretty much locked down. Once this individual signs, I think they\u2019ll let everybody know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Paul has always touted higher pay for fighters and it sounds like he – along with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-670714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670714","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=670714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}