Rampage: $15,000,000 UFC career income figure is “propaganda”
Rampage: “After you pay your taxes, coaches, your manager their percentage, you don’t walk away with the number that they say that they pay you. It’s just propaganda.”
When Wanderlei Silva charged that the UFC underpays fighters, and forces them to fight too often, UFC president Dana White responded.
“You know how much money Wanderlei Silva has made since he’s been with the UFC? $9,700,000,” said White. “So Silva says everybody’s getting rich except the fighters. What does Wanderlei considers rich? $9.7 million isn’t rich? … Wanderlei Silva has fought six times in the last five years … If being overworked is fighting one time a year, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Quinton Jackson too offered similar complaints early last year, and White responded in a similar vein, saying “Rampage” had made 15 million dollars in five years.
If you’re going to go out and you want to say all this stuff about the UFC, we know what we are, we know what we do, we know what you’ve been paid, said White. OK, you made $15.2 but you wanted $100. It’s always going to be the case.
The 15 million dollars was made across 12 fights, across which Jackson went 7-5. Jackson beat Chuck Liddell for the league’s light heavyweight title, and defended it successfully against Dan Henderson, before losing it to Forrest Griffin.
In a recent interview with FightHub.tv, Jackson, now working for Bellator, said he didn’t make enough, and that the UFC figures were “propaganda.”
“No, if I had just quit fighting for the UFC and retired, I wouldn’t be able to retire for the rest of my life, no” said Jackson. “I don’t think I would of, just because of how many kids I’ve got, and what I plan on doing. I would have kept doing movies, but that’s besides the point. But off my MMA money, that I made strictly from MMA, no, I don’t think I would be able to retire for the rest of my life, not after taxes and all that stuff that factors in.
“The UFC put out a big number that I made over the years, and honestly I don’t believe that it’s true. They lie about a lot of stuff. After you pay your taxes, coaches, your manager their percentage, you don’t walk away with the number that they say that they pay you. It’s just propaganda.”
