Wed Jul 01, 2009 12:35 pm EDT
WEC is growing by leaps and bounds. All one needs to do is look at WEC 41 in Sacramento where the event pulled in 13,027 fans and around an $815,415 gate. Two of the biggest stars with organization, seeing that growth, are starting to grumble about their pay.
Last week with Cagewriter, WEC bantamweight champ Miguel Torres, 28, made mention of his salary and said he may only have a shelf life 3-4 years if the money doesn't improve. Torres also joked at the WEC 41 fan Q & A that he would only wage a superfight against Urijah Faber if "they made it worth his while."
Faber has been just as vocal. He's in a tough position. WEC helped Faber get out there on a big level. On the flip side, Faber has been a willing front man for the promotion over the last two years. But now with only one fight left on his contract, he's lost 2-of-3 fights and is coming off a broken hand. Faber wants to make sure he's taken of and sounds bothered by his pay versus what he sees the UFC's elite stars pulling in (3:40 mark):
"I definitely don't think it's a fair scale," Faber told RawVegas' Dave Farra. "They say that WEC is a different company than UFC."
Zuffa, headed up Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta along with Dana White, owns both fight organizations. When he's been told by Lorenzo Fertitta and White that WEC and UFC are different, Faber joked, "well then can you talk to the owners and see if you can pull some strings?"
Faber's only real option is in Japan unless Affliction and Strikeforce show more interest in promoting 145 pound fights in the U.S. He's hoping it doesn't come to that:
"Things will be fine as long as they're looking at me as an investment and not an expense. I've done my part, countless interviews and gone above and beyond with the PR."
Faber has been dynamite over the years with the media and fans. He's one of the top 15 fighters in the world so let's hope he sticks around after his next fight in WEC.
Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

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23 Comments
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If Faber wants to fight for a living, and he doesn't want to go to Japan, and nobody else wants to pay featherweights to fight, then he'll just have to accept what WEC gives him...or...figure out a way to make himself and the WEC brand more valuable.
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Hopefully the WEC starts doing PPVs sooner than later so they can pay guys like Brown, Faber and Torres the $$$ they deserve....
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Another option is for Torress and/or Faber to go up in weight class.
Whatever the case, I don't see too many fighters in DREAM giving them problems, if they want to live in Japan, which I doubt. I don't see why Affliction or Strikeforce won't be interested in star attractions like them.
You guys who think that the UFC and WEC pays handsomely better think again. You only get teh six figures in the UFC if you are a top HW or LHW. Most of the fighters are paid below $10k per fight.
How many times a year do they fight? Twice, maybe three times? I can find a job making $30k and not have to get my teeth kicked in.
The UFC has turned from a tournament into a profit center. If you ain't Chuck Liddell or Brock Lesnar, don't ever expect to make those kind of dollars.
Or you can do what Anderson Silva wants to do, Box professionally on the side. Boxing is where the money is, not MMA.
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UFC doesn't pay great, but it's not awful. A low-end guy that fights three times a year will probably get something like $40,000-$50,000 provided he wins one or two of his fights, then he gets paid by his sponsors, then he has the opportunity to make fight night bonuses.
Face it...It was never a "tournament." It always was, and still is, a business.
If Faber and Torres want to leave, fine. WEC still has Aldo, Benavidez, Bowles, Brown...plenty of guys hungry to take their place. And if viewership falls off the map, Zuffa will just fold it...it's probably not all that profitable right now anyway.
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This is just what Affliction or some other organizations needs!!! Let faber and Torres jump ship!! Would be a big mistake for UFC (WEC). I bet Dana Will have to go deeper into the Ferrita's pockets because he is primarily concerned with crushing the competition....although lowballing fighters is a close second!
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"If that were true Dubya, Silva wouldn't want to box professionally on the side, he would want to box professionally period. "
No that is incorrect. Race car drivers like Earnhardt Jr. can make more money boxing, but he won't stop racing altogether just to make the money. MMA/Vale Tudo is Anderson Silva's core, boxing is like his Micahel Jordan to baseball. Jesus. Get real!
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"Dubya B: Yeah....they're the face of WEC...but WEC doesn't make a whole lot of money. The gate was $800K for WEC 41, then throw in whatever merchandise and TV money they got."
Do you know what the advertisers paid? The sponsors? No you don't. We are talking millions.
" Then they had to pay 20 fighters plus fight night bonuses. " which came up to what? $215k?
"They had to pay the commission's licensing fees."
So? That is the cost of doing business.
"They had to pay the arena. They had to pay their staff...marketing...overhead...all kinds of things. There's just not that much money to throw around when that's all done. Not like in a UFC event where they gross close to $50MM for their bigger shows."
Yawn. Again that is the cost of doing business. When has the UFC ever made $50 million for a show, even with PPV?
"UFC doesn't pay great, but it's not awful. A low-end guy that fights three times a year will probably get something like $40,000-$50,000 provided he wins one or two of his fights, then he gets paid by his sponsors, then he has the opportunity to make fight night bonuses."
No a low end guy makes around $1000-$5000, and if lucky will make bonuses. Who in the UFC fights three times a year? A manager at walmart makes more than most UFC fighters.
"Face it...It was never a "tournament." It always was, and still is, a business."
Yes it was a tournament, that is what it started out as. It was an elimination match of several groups of guys in one night.
"If Faber and Torres want to leave, fine. WEC still has Aldo, Benavidez, Bowles, Brown...plenty of guys hungry to take their place. And if viewership falls off the map, Zuffa will just fold it...it's probably not all that profitable right now anyway."
Except for Brown, those guys are all second tier. Brown still doesn't have half the following or charisma of Faber. Besides, you are assuming that those guys are happy with their $10k or $30k pay days.
You keep bringing up the organization's expenses, but forget to mention that for the fighters. They have to pay expenses for training equipment, coaches, training partners and for gyms. That could account for almost half of their $30k pay days.
Look at most of the fighters, they are living at home with their parents or living in trailer parks. Pulver owns a home in a lower middle income area and from his own words he implies that he is struggling. Faber has to make ends meet by being a wrestling coach at a gym.
Like I said, Walmart management makes more money per year than most WEC/UFC fighters make in one year.
Boxers, on the other hand, still make the big bucks. Mayweather, Roy Jones, Tyson, James Toney etc., even at their ages can bring in seven figures for one fight. In some fights they have earned up to $10-$30 million for a fight.
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Dubya B:
The TV advertisers paid Versus, not WEC...and probably not much for a show that probably didn't pull a 1.0 Nielsen rating. There is no way the sponsors paid into the millions...might have bumped the total gross up to $1MM, but not "the millions."
The 20 fighters plus fight night bonuses came up to a DISCLOSED $215K, but they get other bonuses on top of that. Don't be surprised if Faber and Brown got a percentage of the gate, though probably not a big one.
You say "Yawn, that is the cost of doing business." Well?! Don't they have to recoup that cost somehow? How do they make money other than holding events. The cost of doing business comes out of their gross revenues from their shows. The difference is that "overhead" type cost is relatively fixed, and it's a much bigger percentage of a WEC show's gross than it is a UFC show's gross.
Penn/GSP and Lesnar/Couture each sold more than 1 million PPVs just in North America. At $50-60 a pop, that's more than $50-60MM right there. Throw in gate, big-time sponsors, merchandise, the DVDs on the back end, and worldwide PPV, and I wouldn't be surprised if they gross close to $100MM from Penn/GSP. I can just about guarantee they gross $100MM from UFC 100. That's GROSS...not how much they MAKE.
If you want to make MMA your job, you find a way to fight three times a year. If you're not fighting three times a year, you have time to get a job outside of MMA. Again, the fighters are paid undisclosed money and sponsorship money. I imagine even the last guy on a UFC PPV undercard makes $10K. I believe many UFC fighters are under contract with their camps so that they don't have to pay them as long as they fight a certain number of times and help train other fighters.
If a Walmart manager makes more than a MMA fighter, then maybe the MMA fighters are in the wrong job. They do it because they love it. If I did what I love all day (you don't want to know what that is), I wouldn't get paid as much as they do.
The boxers you named are some of the biggest draws out there, even if they're not the best anymore. And they wouldn't get seven figures if their fight was on Versus on a Sunday night.
While the original format of the UFC shows was a tournament, it was still a BUSINESS...not a charity event or free exhibition. And if the UFC goes back to 8 man tournaments, guess what...That's 7 fights out of the card where 8, instead of 14, guys get to fight. That means 6 guys a month that would otherwise have a fight are doing nothing.
It's simple economics. If WEC could pay them more, or if they could actually threaten to go somewhere else to make more, they'd get paid more one way or the other. That hasn't happened. Supply and demand.
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Boxers, on the other hand, still make the big bucks. Mayweather, Roy Jones, Tyson, James Toney etc., even at their ages can bring in seven figures for one fight. In some fights they have earned up to $10-$30 million for a fight.
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in boxing the main event, usually the only fight shown makes 5 million, and every other fighter on the card barely break 3K. So by your want Faber and brown should get 200K and every other fighter should be lucky to make 1k?
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