Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:45 am EDT
Affliction has asked fighters to take a pay cut, just not Barnett
The first signs of a crack in the Affliction fighting gameplan emerged last week. There was a story on WrestlingObserver.com by Yahoo! Sports Dave Meltzer that Affliction had asked its fighters to take a 50% pay cut on upcoming cards. Maybe Dana White's claim that Affliction fighting would be out of business soon held some water.
The story has been changed a few times over the last week or so. Josh Barnett posted a response on MySpace and then told FightOpinion.com that he wouldn't take a 50% pay cut if asked.
Barnett, who is facing Andrei Arlovski on Oct. 11 in Las Vegas, appeared on Vegas' ESPNRadio1100 on Monday and again backed up his MySpace claim that Affliction hadn't asked anyone to take a paycut:
{ysp:block}"Basically (Affliction VP) Tom (Atencio) was saying that if other fighters were thinking Affliction was a cash cow and they were all going to jump in and get paid exorbitant amounts of money, that they were mistaken. The guys that are there, they're not asking anyone to take a paycut."{ysp:block}
CLICK BELOW TO HEAR EXCERPTS OF THE BARNETT INTERVIEW (w/Cofield & Cokin on ESPNRadio1100):
Barnett went out of his way to defend Meltzer saying that he generally does a good job but that he missed the mark on this story. When ESPNRadio1100 contacted Meltzer he stood by the story and gave further clarification. It sounds like Barnett is defending Affliction but hasn't been told the entire story by management.
Meltzer said that Atencio told him that fighters needed to work with Affliction on salary issues or they weren't going to last much longer. Meltzer also said an agent that he spoke with did confirm that Affliction requested a 50% paycut with one of his fighters but that was only in cases where the fighter was going to face an easier opponent. Easier opponent? Who determines what an easy opponent is? Bottomline, Affliction has asked fighters to take paycuts in certain situations according to Meltzer.
The 'Babyface Assassin' breaks down Fedor's injury, why UFC never called him as a free agent and how he ripped Ben Rothwell after his Arlovski fight. He also challenges Arlovski's ground game and explains whether the Affliction company model will work longterm. You can hear the entire Barnett conversation here.
One side note about Barnett. He did indicate that he knew about this fight shortly after the Jul. 19 Affliction 'Banned' card. He did an interview with MMARated.com before the Jul. 26 Elite XC event and took a laissez faire attitude when asked about getting passed over for a Fedor fight.
Around the 2:00 mark of the conversation, Barnett told Ariel Helwani that he didn't know who his next opponent would be. Barnett indicated to ESPNRadio1100 that he did know about the Fedor injury and that Arlovski would be his opponent at the time of the interview. Barnett is good company man but he screwed Helwani out of a nice scoop.
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Steve Cofield
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30 Comments
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Lesnar gets 250K a fight with a record of 0-1 in the UFC.. 1-1 MMA
Rampage to defend his title as LHW champion and long time MMA fighter against Griffin got 225K..
Go Affliction.!!! They will withstand the lean times and fighters will make their way over to their roster. Dana White learned a lot from his failures in boxing. He learned to be even more shrewd and cheap.. He is a doughboy that looks like a dingaling on juice.. Cofield is under his desk.. It is all annoying.......
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I love what the UFC has done for MMA but it doesnt give them the right to make or break a fighters career.....That should happen in the cage!
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There are so many more interesting MMA topics than D. White to discuss, the fact that almost every single post you two ever make seems to revolve around that topic, certainly makes one curious about your motivation.
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Don't you think it's pretty silly that Dana is not interested in a top 5 HW (IMO #3 behind Nog) in a division in which they are incredibly weak at all because of some personal vendetta?
That's not the wisest of business decisions and is just further evidence of Dana White's immaturity. The guy's a clown.
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Then we get Griffin vs Rampage esque matchups. Though Forrest won he was not the leading candidate for a titel shot, it was Machida (the matchups was still phenomenal but the rightful contender was screwed yet again). Forrest only got the shot because of notaoiety so to create a huge PPV draw and now that he won, the UFC is just running with it to try and cash in on the biggest PPV draw in their history. Hence Chuck vs Rashad (Rashad shouldn't have gotten this fight) with the plan for a Chuck vs Forrest New Years Eve Main Event. The UFC is dirty, they dictate the matchups instead of letting the fighters performances dictate the matchups.
Chuck vs Machida should've been the fight but they want Chuck with the strap again so are feeding him what they've fed him throughout his entire MMA career, another wrestler (or grappler) who will be at a distinct disadvantage.
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the fact of the matter is if you are paying your workers more than what you are bringing in you are losing money and it's a business. they do need to make some budget cuts and bring in some more ppv's which i am sure they will there next card in order to survive but they have a strong support in trump which has deep pockets. i am sure they are willing to take a couple of losses before hitting it big.
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I would argue that MMA as most sports is a "natural monopoly" and like other such entities will only reach full potential when that state is achieved. If that state is avoided (like in boxing) fans become fragmented and frustrated and lose interest.
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Chuck was fed wrestlers and grapplers throughout his career, it's a known fact that even Chuck fans accept (ones with the mental capacity above a 6th grade level). Chuck has always struggled with strikers and who were the 3 names you mentioned? Oh that's right, Jardine, Rampage and Silva (how very retarded of you to even bring up those 3 names in a debate about Chuck fighting wrestlers and grapplers throughout his career). Chuck's got a combined 1-3 record against those 3. For people with common sense and logic (neither of which criteria you fit-the-bill for) it's a dead giveaway of why he was fed mostly 1 dimensional wrestlers and grapplers... Could it be that Chuck's always struggled with strikers? Hence Mezger, Overeem, Rampage, Jardine and even Couture and his average at best boxing all giving Chuck problems. He blocks punches with his face so it only works well against wrestlers and grapplers who don't have KO power.
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