After Six Fights In The UFC, Top Welterweight Says He's Broke As A Joke

While the UFC boasts that they had their best year ever in 2017, despite viewership across all platoforms being down 55% on the year, several fighters are still not getting paid a living wage.

Fighters like Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, and champions across all divisions are living and eating just fine. However, in order to get your wages up you have to win, and be marketable doing it.

Fighters like Rory MacDonald and Roy Nelson were able to get four times as much as their UFC salary outside of the world’s largest MMA promotion, but some fighters don’t have that luxury.

Bound by contract to fight at their agreed wage, many fighters can’t afford to commit to full time MMA efforts, pay for their training camps, pay their coaches, and provide for their families on what the UFC pays alone.

Back in the day, a fighter would supplement their low UFC pay with higher yielding sponsorship revenues. However, in 2015, the UFC took that out of the equation as well.

Now with little money coming in under the UFC’s new Reebok deal, and with low fighter wages for the majority of their athletes, the UFC has crushed potential earning power of their mid-level talent.

Such is the case for rising UFC welterweight Belal Muhammad‏, who after six fights in the UFC is complaining that he doesn’t have two pennies to rub together. He’s currently riding a three fight win streak as well.

Here’s what he said:

I’m so broke right now if anybody robbed me they’d just be practicing