Miocic: UFC took my kindness for weakness

UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic had an extraordinary year in 2016. On January 2 he knocked out Andrei Arlovksi in the first, winning a Performance of the Night bonus. On May 14 he knocked out Fabricio Werdum in the first, winning another Performance of the Night bonus, and the UFC belt. And on September 10 he knocked out Alistair Overeem in the first, defending his title, and winning Fight of the Night, in front of a hometown audience.

Bad news was, Overeem made $800,000 to lose, and Miocic made $600,000 to win. Miocic only found out when the Ohio Athletic Commission made the payouts public. During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Miocic was not impressed.

Terrible, said Miocic, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. Things definitely need to be changed. Something’s gotta change. It’s not really fair.

I just felt like I was kinda crapped on a little bit. I try to do things right and work with them, and they just didn’t give me a great deal. That’s my own fault, but also they knew what they were doing. They took my kindness for weakness.

They told me it was the best deal they could do, and I said, ‘Oh okay, great.’ And then come to find out, it wasn’t.

The fighter said had he known, he would have requested a renegotiation. He expressed his feelings to the UFC but remains unsatisfied with the response.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. They just made up some excuse, like that’s the contract you signed, said Miocic.

You’re making money off me in my hometown, and you’re giving the man that’s a challenger who’s never won the title in the UFC, you’re giving him more money?

It definitely should change. But the fact that my challenger made more money than me in my last fight was just kind of a slap in the face.

Miocic said the plan is to fight in May, but contract negotiations are clearly not completed.

it’s just a mess right now, so we’ll leave it at that,” he said.

We’re definitely not being unfair. We’re not looking for a couple million or anything like that, but definitely getting compensated for winning the belt, defending the belt in my hometown, and also the guy making more money than me is just unheard of. That’s terrible.