Hunt offered pay without fighting, refused
When Zuffa bought PRIDE Fighting Championship, and disbanded it, they brough over some former Pride stars. Mark Hunt faced an alternate…
When Zuffa bought PRIDE Fighting Championship, and disbanded it, they brough over some former Pride stars. Mark Hunt faced an alternate offer – UFC would pay him to go away and surrender his contracted fights.
Professional fighters fight to get paid. But getting paid to not fight is a pretty sweet deal.
But Hunt said no, he said he wanted to fight. Thus it was that for the first time ever, a fighter entered the UFC on a five-fight losing streak. In ordinary circumstances, it takes at least a five fight winning streak to get noticed for a potential UFC contract.
Then Hunt lost quickly to Sean McCorkle at UFC 119. The 37-year-old Samoan appeared to be one-and-done in the UFC.
But Hunt pressed on, and earlier in 2011 at UFC 127 in Australia, earned “Knockout of the Night” honors vs. Chris Tuchscherer. Now, following a grinding decision victory over Ben Rothwell last night, UFC president Dana White voiced praise.
“I actually asked Mark to come to this press conference,” White said. “Many of you probably don’t know, or some of you do know, when we bought PRIDE, he came as part of the PRIDE deal. It was back and forth, and basically I was like, ‘You know what? We’ll just pay you off what we owed you in the PRIDE deal.’ Mark Hunt said, ‘No, I want to come, and I want to fight.'”
“He said “I want to earn this money.” And he did it. I give him all the respect and the credit in the world. I’m glad that he opted to come in here and fight … I’m proud that he fought in the UFC.”
“The guy’s got a ton of heart, and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. I really wanted him to be at this press conference tonight. I have nothing but respect for Mark Hunt, and I’m actually glad that we worked this thing out and he did fight in the UFC.”