“I don’t know if the fine they gave me is a punishment for being unruly. But like I said, a few grand, I mean, look at…let’s just say the NFL. They have a $5,000 uniform cap, and they make millions of dollars. And their uniform cap is $5,000. So, even $5000 I wouldn’t be that mad. But still, the amount they gave me is ludicrous. It’s more than five grand, quite a bit more. Let’s just say I could probably go out and buy a new car for a Vietnam vet right now, cash money… And then the part that really upset me is that they said if I do it again, I won’t be able to fight again. So, that kind of buckled me. We’ll see. I mean, I plan on wearing it again. If they want to fine me, I’m going to wear it again. We’ll see… It’s not the fact that they took it. It’s just the amount to me is crazy. A few grand? Sure, I would have taken that, like yeah yeah yeah. But the amount they took was ludicrous. My thing to whoever took it is, you don’t even have to give it back to me. Let’s donate it to a charity. Let’s give it to the wounded warriors, or to the women with children that are orphaned because their fathers are over defending our country. So, let’s do that with it.”
-Donald Cerrone talks to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour about the fine he received for violating the Reebok outfitting policy by sewing a patch of the American flag on his shorts at UFC on Fox 17.
Penick’s Analysis: Once again, the fact that the athletes have no say in the way this is implemented allows the UFC to get away with “ludicrous” fines after already cutting down the amount of money they can make per fight to begin with. Threats to say he won’t be able to fight again can’t hold up, because if they’re not going to book him they’d have to cut him, and if they didn’t do that, or tried to argue otherwise, Cerrone could have grounds to take them to court in order to make that happen. Considering he continues to plan to sew that patch on, as he’s done for every fight, we’ll find out soon enough what the UFC will do. He’s got a main event fight next even after the “violation,” so he hasn’t been punished on that front, but them fining him a ridiculous amount with how little they’re paying out to begin with is asinine.
[Photo (c) Jayne Kamin-Oncea via USA Today Sports]
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