REDDzone wrote:Listen to Al Iaquinta's interview on MMAHour yesterday. If you can look past his past polarizing actions, he actually makes some great points. Lifelong dream of his to fight at MSG, but he won't do it because they don't pay him enough (I think he mentioned during the interview he makes 26k).
He's a realtor now and can't afford to focus on a fight camp for that type of money. Also, said he used to get monthly salaries to live off of by his sponsors but they all left him when reebok came in. Basically says he's prepared to retire if they don't re-negotiate. Says Joe Silva threatened to cut him, called him names, etc. when they called to re-negotiate. Also says he talks to many others fighters who feel the same way but don't have the balls to take a stand against the ufc (this is a similar theme as when that union guy was on last month or whenever).
I'm just spewing what I can remember but I recommend listening.
What's infuriating is that generally the only people who can speak up are those who either already has made a name for themselves or have other solid opportunities elsewhere either in fighting or outside fighting. But this group is a very small minority. Schaub decided he didn't need to fight under the Reebok banner because he had things going on outside with the podcast and what not. Rockhold has his whole modelling thing going for him apparently. Rory had competing offers from Bellator.
Dana and Joe Silva know there is talent out there losing money fighting in regional circuits and willing to break even just to fight in the UFC. If you're a good fighter but you don't exactly have a lot of drawing power or personality, you just don't have a ton of negotiating power. When the UFC banned all sponsors except for the official UFC sponsors (Reebok, Monster, Harley Davidson etc), that took the last bit of control of earning potential from the fighters which as Bernman mentioned, is completely tyrannical and if the fighters banded together for more power collectively, this would've gone through a negotiation phase or through the courts before an exclusive sponsorship deal would've been put in place.








