{"id":438713,"date":"2026-01-28T13:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438713\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T13:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:41:06","slug":"manager-on-justin-gaethjes-ufc-324-pay-complaints-theres-no-beef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438713\/","title":{"rendered":"Manager on Justin Gaethje\u2019s UFC 324 pay complaints: \u2018There\u2019s no beef\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Gaethje had an interesting fight week leading up to his interim lightweight title fight at UFC 324. Despite claims by the UFC and various UFC employees that fighters were getting their contracts tuned up<\/a> in the Paramount+ era to account for disappearing PPV bonuses, \u201cThe Highlight\u201d claimed he wasn\u2019t making a dollar more than he was before. He even castigated commentator Daniel Cormier for \u2018lying.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re out here saying everybody\u2019s getting paid more and you\u2019re f\u2014king lying,\u201d Gaethje told Cormier. \u201cWhy would you say that? Why would you talk out of your ass when you have no idea what\u2019s happening?\u201d<\/p>\n

UFC CEO Dana White countered Gaethje\u2019s claims<\/a> by saying they did offer the fighter more money leading into UFC 324, and Gaethje never responded to their offer. Now we have Gaethje\u2019s manager Ali Abdelaziz clearing the air with MMA Junkie on what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, I have rules. I don\u2019t talk about financial business,\u201d Abdelaziz began before dishing on this financial business. \u201c Dana was right, an offer was made. It was made. But sometime \u2026 a little bit more money? Dana was not lying. But in reality, Justin, maybe he was not okay with the offer. But everything worked out correctly. Justin is good. Now we need to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

That makes sense: an offer was made, it was insultingly low, and Gaethje decided to roll the dice and renegotiate after he won the interim lightweight belt. Now the champ is in a much better position to get a solid pay bump, especially after UFC 324 did such great numbers for Paramount+.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut in a way, I always say for athletes, everyone have feelings, we\u2019re all men, we all have testosterone,\u201d Abdelaziz continued. \u201cAnd Justin is emotional. And he speak. Justin\u2019s not lying. I think nobody in the UFC deserves to make more money than Justin Gaethje. I don\u2019t give a s–t. Nobody. In the hall of fame, he should be the first one. He make money, he should be the first one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think you\u2019re worth money, and you want to talk about it, we can talk about it behind closed doors. I think nobody wins when you talk about money publicly. But also fight week, emotion, and listen: Dana came out and said he doubled the bonus. And I think this is something \u2014 I don\u2019t think this is something Justin Gaethje said, I think it was pre-planned. But now everyone gets $100,000, not $50,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin Gaethje loves to be a UFC fighter, loves to compete,\u201d he concluded. \u201cThere\u2019s no beef. No beef between UFC and Justin Gaethje. Justin Gaethje is like every other athlete in the world: he want to be paid a lot, a lot, a lot of money. And if anyone deserves it, it\u2019s him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaethje does deserve more money, and it\u2019s sad that a guy the UFC regularly promotes as the most exciting fighter in the promotion has to engage in this kind of hardball negotiating to get what he deserves, while at the same time headlining the first card of the new $7.7 billion Paramount+ era. Pay this man what he\u2019s worth, UFC!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje had an interesting fight week leading up to his interim lightweight title fight at UFC 324.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,153471,139445,702],"class_list":["post-438713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-324","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}