BoxRec

Kevo wrote:Gary,
Paul Daley's profile seems to have risen a lot since he went to the US to fight in a Strikeforce card, just wondering if you planned to do anything similar?

Daley is good enough to fight UFC

Garey you said that UFC was a closed shop, does that mean you believe that the UFC champions aren't the best MMA fighters around. What fighters do you think could be successful in UFC, also what do you think of Micheal Bispings carrer so far?

Hi!

Yeah, only UFC fighters get an opportunity to fight for UFC titles, so its a closed shop. Contracts get offered, but if people are getting more elsewhere, its not an incentive to change organisations...

One of the things that Gary Shaw has done in buying so many individual shows is to start to get a true world setting in place...where people from each of the organisations he has can fight on each other's cards...starting to get a more 'true' World no. 1, than the closed shop that is the UFC. Its the right way forward, uniting many of the smaller shows.

The USA seem to think that all MMA is is UFC. They may like to look at the other large shows out there, including Pride and Hero's. I believe that if you look at many of the fighters winning outside the UFC at the moment, there is a whole host of characters who could challenge, possibly successfully for the UFC crown, but wouldn't get the opportunity.

I like Mike Bisping, he's a good fighter and a nice fella, and is doing very well participating his apprenticeship with the world's eyes on him. Most get to do their apprenticeship a bit quieter! He's not necessarily the best in Britain, but definately the best known. His career has the potential to go whereever he wants it to - he's got some real talent.

Some time soon he'll have an all important slip up, a fight that he may lose, and then I really think that we'll see the making of Mike, as he gets p*ssed off with the loss, totally revises his training and mentality, and takes it to the next level...

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I thought UFC bought out Pride. Thanks for answering the questions. Do you fancy your chances in UFC?

Zuffa bought Pride - they also own UFC. They have no plans to have any Pride branded shows so one would assume Pride is no more. I wouldn't rule out UFC Japan shows though. A lot of the new guys in UFC - Rampage, Shogun, Henderson are insanely popular in Japan.

how do the purses compare with the different organizations?

thaibox uk wrote:how do the purses compare with the different organizations?

I think K1 pays the best, although at the top level nothing pays as well as boxing.

k1 pays well in japan but only the big names get reasonable money elsewhere.
Gary won uk K1 twice which involved 3 gruelling fights per night each time and probably recieved a much smaller purse than for any of his his mma fights.
mma is leading the way for martial sports when it comes to getting paid but again only the top of the bill guys are getting reasonable money and most don,t come close to what a novice boxer would earn.

Hi!

The top K1 guys will get $20-$100k for an individual match, and winning the K1 GP final gives $400k plus bonuses.

But the top 8 contracted K1 fighters also receive sponsorship deals etc for advertising, and these contracts can net far more - when I met Bob Sapp in Vegas a couple of years ago it had been rumoured he'd made $1m from advertising alone in the previous 6months, but he's an exception.

Tournament fights, such as K1 Scandanavia etc will have purses for winning the tournament of around 10k Euro.

Peanuts really!

Its about the same for UFC, Pride, and many other MMA shows. If you look at the UFC payouts, you'll see that the fighters receive between $3k and $20k at the lower end of the big shows, with some of the biggest names getting much more.

As always, the bulk of the money is taken by the biggest names...

ThaiboxUK - you are correct in respect to K1 UK, lol, they pay peanuts, but I have earned much more than that in Europe and USA, and regularly have received more per match out of the country than I have in the UK MMA fights..

And its amazing the tax breaks you get! Its treated as a business, so all business expenses are tax deductable in accordance with standard accounting practices...all training expenses come straight off...

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UFC do have bonuses for the KO of the night aswell don't they, which I think is a good idea, if they had for example a fight of the night bonus in boxing.

Yeah they do give bonuses to Ko of night, fight of night and submission.
They publish the earnings plus bonuses. Liddell got $500,000 the other week but they bloke who beat him got next to nothing in comparison.

chris s wrote:Yeah they do give bonuses to Ko of night, fight of night and submission.
They publish the earnings plus bonuses. Liddell got $500,000 the other week but they bloke who beat him got next to nothing in comparison.

Dont get too hung up on the published wages - as I understand it there is are plenty of bonuses to augment what appear very low purses, in the instances of good, popular fighters.

Rich Franklin, for instance, is contracted to something like $40,000 to show + $40,000 win bonus which is peanuts consiering his status popularity. You can bet Zuffa and White augment this with bonuses and undisclosed benefits.

I would like to see the show/win purse split trialed in boxing - if you can double your take home by getting the 'w', surely this would inspire at least a certain percentage of boxers to fight that bit harder?..