{"id":528509,"date":"2026-03-11T06:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T06:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/528509\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T06:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T06:34:15","slug":"jake-paul-advises-mma-fighters-to-sign-with-matchroom-after-ronda-rousey-blasts-ufc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/528509\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Paul Advises MMA Fighters to Sign With Matchroom After Ronda Rousey Blasts UFC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ongoing battle between mixed martial arts and boxing<\/a> continued at a Most Valuable Promotions media event, with Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian\u2019s fight firm entering the MMA space with an upcoming Netflix fight between combat legends Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano.<\/p>\n

It began with a bold comment from Paul, renowned for baiting many from MMA and boxing alike, storming his way to prominent positions in the latter as he secured himself high-profile, highly-watched spectacles involving Mike Tyson and Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the UFC is dying,\u201d he said, \u201cand MVP is here to take over.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Paul, \u201cMMA is in a weird position right now,\u201d hinting at struggles to book the biggest bouts like Jon Jones vs Tom Aspinall and Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou among others, with increasingly agitated superstars, with Jones himself asking for a release this week from his contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll see more UFC fighters go and sign with Eddie Hearn, which I think is a very smart move on their part,\u201d Paul said, suggesting more fighters may follow UFC heavyweight champion Aspinall into Matchroom\u2019s talent agency.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s business partner Bidarian added: \u201cEddie Hearn as an agitator is funny in many ways but can be powerful because there\u2019s never been a sophisticated manager at his level who\u2019s running a billion dollar promotional business that understands the inside and outside of fighter contracts the way that he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul and Bidarian\u2019s comments weren\u2019t the only ones newsworthy when it came to the increasingly cross-pollenated combat worlds.<\/p>\n

Rousey, who fights Carano on May 16 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, blasted the UFC over fighter pay. <\/p>\n

UFC fighters command a significantly lower percentage of revenue than athletes in other sports, with rostered MMA fighters receiving 16-20% compared to more than 50% in major league sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s why their champions like Valentina [Schevchenko] are selling pictures of their t****** on OnlyFans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rousey, one of the UFC\u2019s biggest-ever stars, said: \u201cIt used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly, and now it\u2019s one of the worst places to go.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added: \u201cIt\u2019s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. A lot of these people at the ground level, they can\u2019t support their families. They\u2019re living at poverty level while fighting full time, and this company just got $7.7 billion [through its broadcast deal with Paramount+, over the next seven years]. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason that they can\u2019t afford to at least pay their athletes a living wage and at least be able to match what these athletes are making in other sports. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would they expect to get the best athletes and aspiring kids that want to be something into MMA? Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are bleeding talent because of their short term greed. They\u2019re thinking about the next quarter, they\u2019re thinking about the shareholders, and they\u2019re not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

MUST READ: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ongoing battle between mixed martial arts and boxing continued at a Most Valuable Promotions media event, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-528509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528509","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=528509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}