Ronda Rousey is one of the biggest UFC stars ever, and she can only shake her head at the how she views the current state of the promotion.
When Rousey’s May 16 comeback fight with Gina Carano was recently announced, it was shocking for multiple reasons, including the fact that it would be taking place under the Most Valuable Promotions banner, not UFC. Rousey and UFC CEO Dana White have long had a close relationship, and even though Rousey has poked fun at how her Netflix-aired event (which also
includes former UFC heavyweight king Francis Ngannou) is superior to the UFC’s White House lineup, it appears to be a friendly rivalry.
However, when it comes to how the UFC does business, Rousey had some harsh criticisms.
“It used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly and now it’s one of the worst places to go,” Rousey said at Tuesday’s press conference in Los Angeles. “It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why their champions like Valentina [Shevcheko] are selling pictures of their titties on OnlyFans. These people, a lot of them at the ground level, they can’t support their families. They’re living poverty-level fighting full-time. This company just got $7.7 billion dollars. There’s no reason that they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage and not even that, to at least be able to match what these athletes are making in other sports.
“Why would they expect to get the best athletes and the best inspiring kids that want to be something into MMA? Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? So they’re bleeding talent because of their short-term greed. They’re thinking about the next quarter. They’re thinking about the shareholders. They’re not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport.”
Rousey made it clear she doesn’t blame her friend White for the UFC’s current model, as she believes he’s become less influential in the promotion’s decision making since it was acquired by WME-IMG in 2016 and later became part of the TKO Group Holdings conglomerate.
Her initial plan was to join forces with White to make the Carano fight happen, but when UFC moved on to it’s blockbuster broadcasting deal with Paramount, she realized that didn’t make sense anymore.
“I knew that we could promote this on our own and probably be the most lucrative way to go about it for us, but I have such love and respect for Dana that I wanted to bring this to him first,” Rousey said. “I said I know I can do this on my own, but I would rather fight for you than to fight for me, just make it make sense for me, and originally we were going to do it New Year’s and it was going to be the last fight under the pay-per-view model and he offered me the best pay-per-view structure ever and I was so grateful, but then Gina said she needed more time to get in the best shape possible and that she wanted me to fight the best version of herself and I think that was fate. It was meant to be. It was meant to push us onto the other side and once they moved into the streaming model, it’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore.
“Dana is legally beholden to the shareholders and to maximize shareholder value and unfortunately, now that they’ve taken the reins of the company away from him, it’s barely recognizable now and they need to be saved from themselves and luckily I’m here to be their hero.”
Whether the parties involved want to push the narrative or not, there is the sense that Netflix entering the MMA sphere puts it in direct opposition to the UFC. Rousey insists that wasn’t her intention, but also acknowledges that their fight has taken on a deeper meaning for a large section of sports fans.
“We went from because of this I had to get her number and talk to her, because of this I had to meet up with her and find a way to make the contract work out and I thought it was just about me finding my love for the sport and just about her getting back to finding that fire and that light in her eyes that we fell in love with, but it’s become much more than that,” Rousey said. “Now it’s become about changing the entire landscape of the sport and challenging the monolith that the UFC has become.
“Of course, I just wanted to do something fun, and I ended up having to change the world, but that’s the way that we do it and I’m so happy that we’re here and I’m so grateful that Gina trusted me. When it wasn’t going to work out with the UFC, I told her we can do this on our own, we don’t need them, we don’t need anyone. And she said, ‘I’m going to follow your lead and I’m going to trust you,’ and that’s what led us to MVP and to Netflix and to us sitting here in front of the Intuit Dome about to put on most-viewed MMA fight of all time.”
Asked for a brief description of White, Rousey offered a somewhat backhanded compliment:
“Dana White, if I could describe him in one word, I would say, I think he’s loyal to a fault. … Loyal. He’s very loyal.”
