For the second year in a row the UFC which puts on mixed martial arts fights is the king of the pay per view. Some people thought it was a fad, or that’s at least what a lot of ignorant boxing fans were wishing it would be, but fads don’t last this long. I think that it is pretty evident that the sport of mixed martial arts is here to stay. Just take a look at the top ten Pay Per Views of 2008 you will see that the UFC has 7 of the top ten shows for the year. With fights like Penn vs GSP and Mir vs Lesnar coming in 2009 they are almost guaranteed to increase their pay per view numbers.
Here’s a list of the top 10 PPV for 2008:
1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao
2. UFC: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture
3. Wrestling: WrestleMania,
4. UFC: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring
5. UFC: Lesnar vs. Frank Mir
6. UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin
7. UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra
8. Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr.
9. UFC: Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans
10. UFC: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida
So if the UFC is making all of this money compared to boxing and selling more PPV and selling out the seats for their fights why in the world do their fighters make so much less then boxers do. Let’s compare the top boxing and top UFC Pay Per View of the year. The UFC’s top PPV of the year was Lesnar vs. Couture, for that fight Lesnar took home $450,000 and Randy Couture earned $250,000. Not a bad nights work but when you compare it to what just one boxer can make on a single night the difference is shocking. For the top boxing PPV of the year De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, De La Hoya took home over $20 million dollars.
Yes that’s right a boxer can make up to 40 times the amount that a mixed martial arts fighter can. Well the boxing match must have sold a lot more PPV than the UFC did, right? The De La Hoya fight did 1.25 million PPV’s while the Lesnar fight sold 1.01 million PPV. So yeah the boxing one sold more PPV but nowhere even close to 40 times the amount. What the UFC is doing to its fighters is a travesty, they are making millions off the sweat and blood of its fighters while they are making chump change compared to what boxer can make with a less popular sport.
Your probably wondering how the UFC can do this, well it’s easy. They are the only game in town right now. Most people don’t even know the term mixed martial arts. Most people call it UFC fighting or just ultimate fighting. Right now they are pretty much the only promotion that is selling big time PPV’s. So they can pretty much pay whatever they want. There is a reason the government made monopolies illegal. They are bad for the workers and they are bad for the consumers.
We need more competition so that fighters will have to be paid what they are worth if a promotion wants to sign them. So I’m calling out to all my Austin MMA fans to start supporting other promotions such as affliction. We need them and more important the fighters need them. If your fighting right now for a local Austin MMA organization and have dreams of one day making it big in this sport you better hope that the UFC has some competition if you want a chance at a fair contract.
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