Michael Page was disappointed with the amount Zuffa Boxing spent on Conor Benn. | Getty/UFC
When the UFC broadcast deal with Paramount was announced, Michael Page took a wait-and-see approach instead of immediately celebrating the news.Page’s skepticism proved well-founded when Zuffa Boxing, which is owned by the same parent company as the UFC, made headlines in the combat sports world by signing Conor Benn to a one-fight deal worth a reported $15 million. While salary figures are rarely released these days, there are few, if any, athletes under the UFC banner who earn that much for a single fight. Even with the new seven-year, $7.7 billion broadcast rights deal in place, it doesn’t appear that UFC purses have increased significantly so far.
“It’s not something I’m happy about,” Page said Yahoo! Sport of Benn’s signing. “What I would say is upon the announcement of the big-money Paramount partnership [with the UFC] came, people asked me, ‘Are you excited about this?’ And my response was, ‘What does that mean for the fighters? Until we understand how that will translate to the fighters, there’s nothing to really be excited about. ”Once the Paramount deal kicked off, the UFC increased the post-fight bonuses to $100,000 for “Performance of the Night” and “Fight of the Night.” Additionally, fighters who carded but did not receive any of these bonuses would earn an additional $25,000 for their efforts.
“Then I heard about the, if you want to call it an increase, in the bonus structure,” he added. “This is why I didn’t bother to be excited at first. Because that doesn’t mean enough to me compared to the amount of money they just raked in for themselves. … Then to see it and how quickly [Dana White]
values people – or how highly he values people outside of the sport that built his reputation – it’s just disturbing, to be honest. It is especially disappointing.”
We deserve more
The 29-year-old Benn, Page says, is “nowhere near the best in his field,” which is why the $15 million salary is so disappointing for the 38-year-old UFC and Bellator veteran.“I’ve been saying this for a long time, I feel like we deserve more,” Page said. “I hate hearing stories about fighters getting to the pinnacle of your career, in terms of the UFC, and still being broke. That just shouldn’t exist. Unless you’re just completely bad with money, it just shouldn’t exist that you’re struggling from fight to fight, and it should just be nothing. … All I can say is that it’s disappointing more than anything.”
Page is 3-1 in the UFC and is coming off back-to-back wins over Jared Cannonier and Sharabutdin Magomedov. He recently expressed his frustration with the lack of available fights for someone in his position. When “Venom” was finally booked, it turned out to be a curious matchup against Sam Patterson at UFC London on March 21.
“It’s a little weird for me,” Page said, “but I’m going to do what I do best: put on a great show and hopefully move on to a bigger name.”
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