By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch Senior Columnist
Still no events to talk about but things pick up starting next week.
Let’s talk about some news items.
Sean O’Malley was on a recent episode of the TimboSugarShow podcast
and talked about fighter pay and why he doesn’t blame Dana White or
the UFC for not paying fighters more. He talked about how some guys
have zero following and don’t make the UFC any money. O’Malley has
also been vocal about how the UFC needs to pay him more if they want
him to fight better fighters. So it might appear that he’s a bit
hypocritical but he also has somewhat of a point. A lot of fighters
aren’t holding up their end of the bargain in terms of making
themselves more popular with people. At the same time, though, the UFC
needs to do a better job of promotion. You don’t want fighters to have
sponsors on their gear? Well, you better pay them more then. There’s
also a few other problems with what O’Malley said.
Social media following doesn’t translate to ticket sales, at least not
on a 1:1 basis. Just because you have a lot of followers doesn’t mean
you’re going to sell tickets and fights.
The fighter’s main job is to fight. Unless you want everyone dyeing
their hair every color of the rainbow and saying controversial things
all the time there’s going to be some boring fighters. The promotion
needs to take it, just deal with it. No one’s saying to overpay the
fighters, just give them a little more than what they’re getting right
now.
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UFC Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman had some very strong words for
some apparent trolls in his Snapchat Story the other day, telling them
to kill themselves. That’s too harsh and Usman shouldn’t spend time
caring what some people online are saying. He shouldn’t say such
things, both because it’s wrong to wish death on people and because it
makes him look weak to respond to haters.
To cite an example, let’s look at LeBron James. Whether you like him
or not he gets a lot of hate. There’s some people out there who say
the dumbest things about him on the court. I’m not going to mention
their names, I’ll just skip that part, but they try to find a way to
criticize everything he does. He doesn’t respond because it’s not
worth the time and effort. That’s what Usman should do. The UFC should
quickly announce that they’ve disciplined Usman (even if they haven’t)
and hope the story fades away.
*************
Max Holloway is injured and out of his fight against UFC Featherweight
Champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 272 on March 5th. Ariel Helwani
has said that Chan Sung Jung, the Korean Zombie, is the front-runner
to step in and face Volkanovski. That’d be a good replacement if they
keep the fight at UFC 272 instead of postponing it. Henry Cejudo has
thrown his name out there as well but it’s unclear how serious he
truly is.
*************
UFC Pay-Per-Views are increasing in price $5 to $74.99 for a
standalone show. That’s absolutely ridiculous but apparently, it’s
worth it for ESPN. It sounds to me like the buyrates are going down so
ESPN and UFC are trying to squeeze more money out of the people who do
buy them but the UFC says their PPV buys are going up so what do I
know? I do happen to know several people who used to get UFC PPVs but
stopped as the prices skyrocketed. That’s anecdotal, though, and not
what’s happening for most people. I will say it’s not a good look to
be raising prices while fighters complain about not being paid enough.
My book is on Amazon. It’s called Small Town Crime Cabal.
It’s about a brother and sister who operate a drug and gambling ring
in their small hometown. They want more, though, and hope to expand
beyond the limits of where they grew up. That comes with a price,
though, and the question becomes- are they willing to pay the price?
This is the first in my Brotherhood of the Streets series. It’s on
Kindle Unlimited right now or you can buy it in e-book or paperback
form. If you’re interested, I would greatly appreciate it if you would
check it out and support me. Here’s the link to my book on Amazon- My Book I’ve also
written a sci-fi book called Forever Man, the link is Forever Man: The
Fight to Save the World. Thank you very much, have a good day.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at
hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
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