Eddie Hearn believes UFC will end up doing a deal with Francis Ngannou - but feels the company’s top stars are underpaid.
Fighter pay has been a hot topic with the UFC in the past couple months as more and more top stars have spoken out about their desire to be paid what they feel they are worth.
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Tyson Fury is set to make around $29.5 million and Dillian Whyte, his challenger, will make $7.4 million from their upcoming WBC world heavyweight title fight once it is made official.
Francis Ngannou won the undisputed heavyweight title at UFC 270 and he made $600,000.
Clearly there is some disparity between the top end of boxing and the top end of UFC.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Hearn broke down how fighter pay works at Matchroom Boxing and commented on UFC’s state of affairs.
“Every fighter than I represent is my boss,” Hearn started.
“Whether they’re a kid debuting in their first fight at 19; I work for the fighter. That’s my mentality. The old school [promoter], they couldn’t say it. If you said to Bob Arum ‘tell me Terrence Crawford is your boss. Go on, say it, Bob!’ He wouldn’t be able to say it.
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“Fighters, for a while now in boxing, they have become the boss. They’re in control of their own destiny.
“With our bigger fighters, we work close to an 80-20 split. It seems like there’s is closer to the other way in terms of revenue. But as the fighter gets bigger, your 20 gets smaller and smaller. If they make £50 million on a fight, what, do you make £10 million? That’s a lot of money for one fight. They are the ones putting their life on the line to go in there.
Jake Paul has been campaigning against Dana White and the UFC to change how fighters are paid.
It’s reported that while NBA, NFL and other sports give around 40 per cent of their profits back to the athletes, UFC is around 18 percent.
“It’s a historic model that I guess will change," Hearn added.
"There'll be more pressure on the organisation as time goes by to adjust that, especially with the voice and noise of someone like Jake Paul. Jake Paul is a disaster for those guys.”
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So would Hearn go as far as to say UFC’s pay structure is unfair?
“Yes. If the split of revenue is skewed towards the other way [the company/promoters] then yeah, I do,” Hearn said.
A key moment in UFC’s history is approaching as Ngannou, one of their top stars could be a free agent soon.
He refuses to be underpaid any longer and will walk away to big crossover fights in boxing one way or another.
UFC can be apart of Ngannou’s journey into boxing if they can agree a deal, but thus far, both sides remain far apart and relations are strained as a result.
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However, Hearn does think UFC will work something out for one of their top stars.
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“The pressure is on UFC to go and do a deal with Francis Ngannou and they’ll significantly overpay him from where he was at, but it comes down to the feeling of the fighter to say, I feel like I’ve been almost mistreated so I don’t want to be here anymore," he said.
“But I’d be shocked if they didn’t do a new deal with Francis Ngannou. I’d say it’s an almost certainty that they will by the time it all plays out.”
