Randy Couture says he is surprised Jake Paul is leading the charge on fighter pay reform in MMA, and he thinks Conor McGregor should have done more.
Paul has been banging on the drum to get UFC fighters (and MMA fighters in general) paid more money, especially as he continues to roll in huge paydays in boxing. During a recent press conference, Paul went on an expletive-filled rant and said that UFC president Dana White should be paying his fighters more money, and saying “f*ck Dana White.”
Speaking to MMAFighting.com, Couture, who once challenged White on the notion of fighter pay himself, was asked what he thinks about Paul leading the charge on fighter pay. As far as Couture goes, he’s surprised Paul is the one leading the charge, but he thinks it’s a positive that someone is out there and stumping for MMA fighters to make more money.
“Why is Jake Paul the one to step up and poke Dana and shine a light on what’s going on and the difference between our sports? What the Ali Act does for boxers that doesn’t happen for the rest of us in combative sports. I think that’s what needs to change. If it takes Jake Paul to run his mouth and get that done, then great. As long as it gets done. It just seems kind of crazy to me that it’s coming from there and we as athletes in mixed martial arts can’t come together and can’t hold these promoters to a higher standard and create the transparency that we need in the sport,” Randy Couture said.
As far as Couture goes, it should have been the UFC star McGregor who was the one leading the way for fighter pay reform when he boxed against Floyd Mayweather.
“The guy that really had a chance to shine a light on it was Conor McGregor. He got a boxing license. As soon as he got a boxing license, he rendered his UFC contract null and void. He had the protections of the Muhammad Ali Act when he became an official boxer with that boxing number and he chose to bring Dana White and company back into that fight when he could have done all that on his own, kept all that money to himself and shined a light on the problem in mixed martial arts. “He chose not to do that. He made $100 million off that fight with Floyd Mayweather. That’s more than he’ll probably ever in mixed martial arts to be truthful,” Randy Couture said.