Gray Maynard: The UFC Treats Fighters like Strippers

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Undisclosed payments have long been a practice of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It’s viewed as a way to reward fighters beyond base salaries and performance bonuses. However, 20-fight UFC veteran Gray Maynard believes it’s a part of the promotion’s strategy to avoid guaranteed paydays, while keeping fighters satisfied enough not to rebel. Essentially, he feels the organization has turned fighter payouts into a tip business.

“They have to do that, just to keep people afloat. I would have lost my mind if I didn’t get an undisclosed [check],” Maynard told Sherdog. “If it’s a title fight, they gave us a $100,000. It’s a pretty standard bonus. What they do, is they don’t want to have to guarantee you money. They don’t want to have to guarantee you that 100 grand every time. So it’s an undisclosed bonus that keeps you a little bit happy. [People say] it’s a big chunk of change, well there’s a lot of money coming in off that. I was a pay-per-view main event. Everything else, it might be $20,000, it might be $30,000. But their whole idea in that is they don’t get locked into a contract, we get locked in. We are kind of treated like strippers. We get tipped out. We’re not guaranteed money. This shouldn’t be a tip game.”

Along with talking about fighter pay, “The Bully” also spoke on the difficulty of UFC contracts and his often negative experiences working with former UFC matchmaker Joe Silva. He also gave his thoughts on if a fighter union is plausible, and if athlete managers are copal in low pay rates. He also answers fan questions and spoke on his interest in competing for promotions like Bellator MMA, Professional Fighters League and Rizin Fighting Federation in the near future.