http://www.headkicklegend.com/2011/3/13/2049047/dispelling-the-hype-why-a-ufc-led-mma-landscape-isnt-all-sunshine-andI've always been cynical of overly cheerful analysis, because it generally throws one thing out the window - logic. "Economics? Reality of fighter pay in MMA? Understanding Zuffa's promotional structure? We fans and writers don't need to care about that!" My first piece on the issue was totally overdramatic, but it was designed to be that way. The tempering of fan hysteria is something I've always been a fan of, so that's why I wrote the piece. This one will be much less dramatic, but not much different in content because - surprise! - people are still ignoring simple facts and simple reality. It seems like most people are saying a variation of "Everything's gonna be great!"
No it's not.
The great thing about this type of platform is the multitude of opinions that we can throw out, giving the reader the ability to make up their own mind after absorbing many different people's views on things. In particular, a few ideas are being promoted as positives or things that are likely to happen, and they're really not realistic at all. Namely - fighter pay, the idea of a UFC channel, and a possible fighter union. Let's examine a few and try to get to the bottom of some points.
Fighter pay will improve under the MMA=Zuffa system! - Why on earth would people think this? Three things have ultimately controlled the general salary of a fighter in MMA - the overall health of the company the fighter is negotiating with, the merits and relative value of the fighter to the company the fighter is negotiating with, and...the ability for that fighter to leverage the bidding for his services between two or more suitors. The latter two being the ones in question here. No competition means no choice for fighters, and a major loss of negotiating power for them.. Zuffa can just say "Take this amount, or..." and there is no "or" anymore. Clearly the regionals aren't paying enough for guys to live off of comfortably. And then there's the WEC.
I always find it funny that people think Dana did the WEC fighters a favor by bringing them over the UFC so they can finally get the riches and recognition they deserve, seemingly ignoring that Zuffa was the one cutting all these guys checks for years before this as well. WEC salaries were kept so low that fighters had trouble training full-time because they couldn't afford to. Why? Well, it's a combination of the three things mentioned above. The WEC was ran as a separate company that didn't generate a ton of revenue. The top fighters weren't huge draws anyway, so they weren't worth hundreds of thousands. And...for FW's and BW's, there was no competition for their services, especially in North America. And no one's promoting them anywhere else even now, so the expectation of a blow-up in salaries isn't realistic, even with Zuffa's revenue stream.
Make no mistake about it - this purchase isn't a good day for fighters in general. While pay might not go down, it's certainly not going to go up appreciably anytime soon. Zuffa holds all the cards. They don't release info on how much they make, they are now the sole relevant evaluator of a fighters value, and there isn't any other place for a fighter to turn to if they want to make a living. In effect, Zuffa has fighters by the balls, and purchases like this only tighten the grip.
The idea that all the Pride guys were well off after the Pride sale is a myth too - here's Joachim Hansen on why he never came over to the UFC in the aftermath, for example.
- Quote :
- Have you spoken to the UFC at all?
Hellboy: "They offered me a fight some months ago – I wasn’t sure if they had bought Pride for what the hell was going on. They offered me a fight against Marcus Aurelio, they offered me half the salary of what I got in Pride. Obviously at the time they had already bought Pride, in my opinion they also bought my contract, so how can they offer me half the salary?
Too much funny things going on, I don’t really want to play games so you know, I’m out in the cold and I’ll make the best out of the situation with kickboxing, boxing and other stuff – and hopefully I’ll be signing a new contract with another organisation, maybe Cage Rage, Heroes or something, I don’t know… and I’ll try to get back on track again."
These are the kinds of things I'm referring to. Oh, and Will Campuzano and Tyler Toner made 3k to fight on the TUF 12 Finale. Just sayin'.
Star-divide
With the tape library that was purchased in this deal, the UFC now has enough footage for a UFC Channel! - Not even close. I'll just insert a couple of my comments on other pieces here to make my point. This sport has less than 20 years of footage. Even if they owned all the JMMA footage, there’s not enough for a channel. Not even close. The WWE owns over half a century of footage from way, way more sources that put on shows way, way more often and their idea of a WWE network has been on the table forever. It’s finally going forward because they’re going to throw a shitload of in-house original content on it to make it viable. Zuffa doesn’t have the ability to do that.
And in reality, they purchased a small amount of relative content. The WFA was
ONE EVENT 4 shows. EliteXC ran 22 shows. Strikeforce 49. Pride 68. Icon 54. This is nothing footage-wise. The WWE bought WCW’s tape library, a company that was running 104 televised shows per year. PER YEAR. And in addition they acquired hundreds of thousands of hours of old NWA, JCP, GCW, and tons of other libraries. That was one of about 20 purchases, all of which involved more tape than this purchase, a few that were hundreds of times larger. And they still don’t have enough content for a channel.
While the accumulation of footage can be viewed as a good thing for Zuffa down the road - the reality is that a UFC channel will not be happening anytime soon.
MMA being under one roof will make it easier for the fighters to unionize! - Highly unlikely. This is where all the pro sports comparisons that have been thrown around in the last few days die an unhappy, illogical death. This is the bottom line - there's very little comparison between the NFL or NBA and MMA because of how Zuffa has structured their business. People hate this comparison, but denying it is ridiculous - Zuffa's structure is strikingly similar to Vince McMahon's WWE structure. Dana has admitted he designed it as such. The "but wrestling's not a sport" excuse holds zero weight to try and negate the validity of the statement, because it doesn't matter. The structure is almost the same regardless of what goes on in the cage or ring. And when it comes to a potential labor union for fighters, the WWE is literally the only apples to apples comparison that can be made.
Pro wrestling has never had a union, despite regular overtures on the wrestler's parts to organize one. Whether it was 1970, 1985, or 2011, the idea has never got off the ground, despite it being a supremely logical thing considering what those guys put themselves through and the lack of rights they have. But they've always had a few things working against them. One is that they've always been independent contractors. Another is the power of the promoter. And the last is the simple concept of greed.
Very few people want to read a wrestling history lesson here and anyone that cares likely knows it already, so I'll keep it brief. In the early 1980's, Vince McMahon started his campaign of terror across the landscape of pro wrestling, mowing down promotions and acquiring tape librarys and wrestlers in their wake. Along the way he became the most powerful man in the business, and set the baseline for most things in the business from then on. Sound familiar?
One thing he was able to do effectively was keep the wrestlers fighting amongst themselves, literally and figuratively. In simplistic terms the few top guys were very rich and got everything they asked for. And the rest of the guys were all jealous, wanting a bigger piece of the pie. The whole idea of a union is to get EVERYONE under the same banner because when you have stragglers, you lose all negotiating power. Under this system, the majority could never convince the top guys to give up what they had been given and join them, because...well, they had everything they wanted. It's very easy to pull the strings on greed, and Vince was (and is) a master of it.
In a lot of ways Vince is actually less greedy than Dana White, choosing not to devour the ancillary rights of their contractors, thereby giving them another (sometimes large) revenue stream. But Dana understands how Vince works very well, and has enacted a similar system to keep fighters from unionizing. Randy Couture is the perfect example. Remember how he fought Zuffa? Well, he lost and crawled back to an eventual huge contract that will keep him from speaking out again. His own career ended up being worth more than the fight. This is not a slight on Randy, I personally agree with his decision to give it up and come back. It just wasn't worth it, especially at his age. But Dana holds the ability to manipulate the fighters to a degree that they will never be able to come together like this. There will always be guys with too much to lose in exchange for the greater good, because Dana can make it that way. And it will mean no union.
The idea of an MMA-themed Ali Act IS feasible for MMA fighters, but that's a whole different story.
In the end, I simply fail to understand why people are being so positive about everything to do with this purchase. People will say that this is overly negative, but it's only being written to temper the happy happy joy joy sentiment that's overtaking a bunch of writers and fans that are usually more even-handed and logical than this. I'm not saying it's all doom and gloom. I'm just not living in a fantasy world where Overeem's gonna fight Cain at UFC 135, fighters are going to have medical insurance, and I'm gonna be able to watch Shamrock/Baroni on the UFC Network next January. People - put down the rose-colored glasses. Please.
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