UFC superstar Conor McGregor has demanded equity in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in compensation for his potential octagon return. While the UFC does not appear amenable to the request, former UFC champion Randy Couture believes that “Notorious” may just deserve it.
Speaking to Submission Radio, Couture let his thoughts on the matter be known.
“[Conor McGregor]’s the poster child for why we need the amendment for Mixed Martial Arts. It will be interesting to see if he comes back to MMA. There’s been a lot of rumors and a lot of talk. Has he been stripped of both his titles? Is he gonna come back and fight again? What’s gonna happen? Who’s he gonna fight? And the big question, what’s he gonna get paid after just getting paid 100 million dollars for a boxing match, even though it was just an exhibition and not for a title?
“What’s he gonna get paid the next time that he comes back and fights in MMA under the UFC moniker? Why would he expect to get paid any less than he got for boxing? I can guarantee you they are not gonna give him that kind of money. So again, why? What’s the difference? Where is the flaw here?”
“It’s all these things that I’ve been talking about with regards to why we need to be protected by the federal legislation. There needs to be transparency in our sport. The exclusive contracts need to be eliminated. We shouldn’t be coerced into giving away all these things in order to be ranked and fight for a title.
“I should be able to know how much money is made off of any show that I fight in, so I can negotiate for my share of that, my portion of that. So if I’m Conor McGregor, he probably feels like he deserves a bigger piece, and certainly 15 percent of it or 17 percent of it as he’s the guy putting butts in seats and having people sell pay-per-views.
“So all those things get brought into question by what Conor’s done so far. We would love to obviously have him involved and testify or be involved in pushing the Ali Act through. He’s aware of us, but so far he’s been very focused on his own deal and doing his own deal. So it will be interesting to see how that shakes out for him.”
