Lauzon very, very happy with new Reebok tier

When the Reebok Deal was announced, the initial plan was for compensation to follow a tiered structure, based on ranking. The rankings are subjective to a degree, but beyond that, the structure based on ranking was flawed.

Take Joe Lauzon. He has fought in the UFC since 2006, winning Submission of the Night six times, Fight of the Night six times, and KO of the night once. And in 2012 he won Fight of the Year vs. Jim Miller. Joe Lauzon is the all-time performance bonus leader in UFC history.

He also runs the highly-regarded Lauzon MMA. One of his students, Joe Proctor, has been fighting in the UFC for under three years, going 3-2 so far. As both are outside the top 15, their Reebok compensation would be identical. That does not make sense.

So the UFC came up with a new tiered system, this time based on tenure. As tenure is based on success, a fighter’s rank is also taken care of.

Lauzon appeared recently on MMAjunkie radio, and declared himself very, very happy with the new tiers, which move him from the bottom, to very nearly the top.

I’m obviously very, very happy about the change, said Lauzon as transcribed by Brent Brookhouse for MMAjunkie. I went from being basically bottom tier to close to the top tier. I think I’m in the second tier because I think it’s like 21 fights plus. I think I’m in the 16 to 20; this is going to be my 19th fight. I definitely think it’s a better way of doing it.

Of course I’m going to be a little bit biased because I’ve had so many fights. I look at it as I’ve had a lot of fights. I’ve paid dues. It kind of makes more sense. I’m one of those guys that got the UFC some good recognition and some good attention.

Lauzon is busy preparing for a grappling match with Dillon Danis on May 9 at Metamoris 6, and a fight with with Takanori Gomi on July 25 at UFC on FOX 16. It’s not easy.

There are pros and cons, he said. I used to think, ‘Oh, dude, grappling would be so awesome. You’re not getting hit. You’re not getting this. You’re not getting that.’ But the wear and tear is more specific.

Like, I notice one thing I kind of miss is wrist support. My wrists have been so sore from grappling so much because I’m constantly hand fighting, I’m constantly doing all this stuff like doing a lot of guillotines and things like that. When we’re fighting we have gloves on, and we have hand wraps on, and we have tape on. It kind of gives you a little extra support on your wrists and I kind of got used to it. We’ve been doing so much grappling without the gloves on that my wrists are getting so sore. I’m like, ‘How did I used to do this all the time?’ So, it’s a little tough getting back into it a little bit. But I’m having a lot of fun with it. It’s kind of nice to be able to just grapple and get into condition for one thing instead of two.

The extra grappling practice may come into play vs. Gomi.

I think the only person that would be cooler to fight would be Sakuraba, said Lauzon. I’m a huge Gomi fan from back in the day. I was thinking about it, and I think I still have – I’m a computer guy, so I have backups from old computers and stuff like that. I’m sure I still have old Gomi highlights videos from my computer that are probably 10, 15 years old now on external hard drives or DVDs.