Sean O’Connell: I’m taking years off my life, need to paid some more

Jeremy Horn protege Sean O’Connell has a cool day job – he’s the co-host of a popular sports talk radio show on ESPN700 in Utah called The Bill and OC Show. He wrote a novel that is available on Amazon; it’s good. He has a fan-friendly style that won him Fight of the Night three times in his last five fights. His weigh-ins alone are more entertaining that some fights, getting millions of views on YouTube.

However, he is 2-3 his last five heading into his fight vs. Corey Anderson on Friday night at UFC Fight Night 102. The bout is the last on his contract, so he is not in an enviable position when it comes to negotiate. And he has to negotiate.

He lost in January and made $18,000. UFC purses do not typically go up on a loss, so he probably made 18/18 for next losing an incredible fight of the night to Steve Bosse in June. And he is probably 18/18 again on Friday.

The thing is, fighting can take years off your life. The juice has to be worth the squeeze.

“The UFC still, despite its warts, is the best MMA organization in the world,” said O’Connell to Ben Fowlkes for MMAjunkie. “Ideally I’d be able to negotiate and find an agreeable point when it comes to things like pay, but there are competing organizations out there that might be interested. But I think to make anybody interested, I’ve got to win this fight. That’s the only real priority right now.”

“There’s obviously some precedent for managers to negotiate and position their guy well. In individual sports, that’s the most realistic path to getting the financial rewards without relying on Tim Kennedy and Cerrone to get me more money.”

“When you have a fighting style like mine, I’m taking years off my life. That’s not the UFC’s fault. That’s my choice. But they are reaping the benefits of it.”

“I’m confident in what I’m worth and hopefully the UFC and I can reach an agreeable point and I can continue my career there, but I have to weigh the risk versus reward. If one outweighs the other, then I have to consider other options.”

“If a fighters association is ever going to work, which I’m highly skeptical of, it’s going to take the support of the biggest stars. [Georges St-Pierre, Donald Cerrone, Tim Kennedy, etc] took an important step. I’m skeptical for a lot of reasons, Bjorn’s involvement being one of them, but I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon. Saying, ‘Hey, we created this organization,’ it’s great, but I don’t think it creates any kind of results in real time, real life for guys like me. I don’t know how long it’s going to take for it change how the UFC negotiates contracts or offers peripheral benefits, but it won’t be soon enough to help someone like me with my next contract.”

O’Connell cited Gabriel ‘Napao’ Gonzaga as a fighter “making significantly more than fighters at his level on the same kind of card.” The purses were not available for Gonzaga’s last fight, but his second to last he was making $38,000 to show and $38,000 to win, ten years and a month after entering the UFC. So O’Connell is not greedily looking for millions here.