Cat Zingano: I let Reebok f@$% itself

Last weekend’s UFC Athlete Retreat was supposed to be a bonding experience between new owners WME-IMG and the fighters. However, according to multiple accounts, there was a disconnect.

“I was like, ‘Do these people believe what they’re saying, and they just don’t know? Or are they aware, and it’s a show?'” said Cat Zingano to Chuck Mindenhall for MMA Fighting. “I want to say that every single one of us at least, I don’t know how many times that weekend, were looking at each other rolling our eyes. But also all of us in the fear of, we don’t even get to do anything about this. Part of me felt like there was a highlight video being created, Ultimate Fighter style, where they’re saying the stuff they’re saying on stage and then they edit in us laughing and smiling.

Retired NBA star Kobe Bryant was brought in and lectured on the importance of investing. That is an appropriate speech for young NBA players, where the starting salary is over $500,000. Starting salary in the UFC is $10,000 to show and another $10,000 to win. As the average fighter fights twice a year, and the average fighter loses half the time, and there is no escalator after a win, the average starting salary is in the mid $30,000 range, after you add in the $2,500 per show from Reebok. Bryant couldn’t have had a clue.

“How much did it cost for Snoop to be there for a private concert?” asked Zingano. “And every carpet in this hotel saying ‘Fighter Retreat?’ Why not spread that money out over us? Or get us health insurance? We’re getting welcomed to a family, this professional athlete family, a world family. Kobe’s telling us how to invest our money. Tell me how do I invest and intelligently get a return on f***ing five thousand dollars?”

Then there was Reebok. There has been no definitive study, but anecdotally, fighters took a significant drop in income when they were no longer allowed to accept in Octagon sponsorships, and instead have to wear Reebok all during fight week.

They gave us these boxes, these UFC boxes, which had shoes and sweatpants or something in it, said Zingano. On the bottom of the box, it had this coupon, and I pick up the coupon when I got home. Someone had said while we were there, dude, f*** all of this, how are they sitting here educating us about Reebok when Reebok is already taking all of our money? Everyone’s upset about it, that we lost so much money, lost any credit with any sponsors ever.

So I get home and I find that thing on the bottom of the box, and I was like — so, this is really what I’ve worked this hard for? This is me, I’ve made it, I’m one of the best in the world at something, I’ve f***ing made it — and this is what I get from the company that took all my money, is they want more?

Zingano was not impressed and used a central principle from Jiu-Jitsu to make her point – use their errors and force against them.

Thank you @Reebok for the special one time discount of 50% off! So thoughtful 🙂 @ufc #madeit pic.twitter.com/haS0xihOJm

— Alpha Cat Zingano (@CatZingano) May 22, 2017

We’re all scared, she said. We’re all kept in this place, where we have to be controlled, we’re being controlled, and we have to control ourselves if we want to continue to be successful in our position where we’re at. So I don’t get to get on there and say, ‘F*** Reebok.’ I get to get on there and let Reebok f*** itself.

Like so many things, this one comes down to money. In the NBA, NFL, and MLB, the athletes make roughly 50% of the league’s gross revenue. It is widely believed that that is not the case in the UFC.

According to the highly knowledgeable Dave Meltzer, in 2015 the UFC made a $157,806,000 profit on a gross of $608,629,000, an extraordinary 25.9% profit margin. If fighters earned $300,000,000 of that, then that should have been the point of the retreat – we are treating you well, as well as other mainstream sports.

Instead, the fighters were subject to an apparently morning-intoxicated Budweiser representative telling them that Bud loves a winner and doesn’t want a loser, Bryant talking about investing $150,000,000, and a series of presentations on how great the sport is doing, all while many, many fighters are struggling to pay bills, and don’t have real health insurance. Drunken Bud man didn’t know what he was doing, but at least he was drunk; that makes him the smart one. WME-IMG didn’t know what they were doing in painting a lavish image of extraordinary success to a staff that is in no small part scraping by.

A scenario like that cannot but make the average fighter think about organizing. It was likely not what WME-IMG had in mind, but bantamweight Leslie Smith asked Bryant about a union.

“When you guys have this unity, when you guys are operating together on the same page together, it does nothing but simply fortify the sport and make the sport better,” said Bryant. “Not just for the present, but also for the future generations that are coming, so it’s extremely important.”