Jared Cannonier is making his stance on fighter compensation clear as he heads into his next bout, calling for higher pay for UFC athletes.
Cannonier, a UFC veteran since 2015 with 20 fights under the promotion and set for his 21st, is scheduled to face Christian Leroy Duncan in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night 281 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Okla.
"The fighter pay conversation – yes, I would love to get paid more," Cannonier said, adding, "I would love all of us MMA fighters to get paid more. But, there's a big differentiation in skill level, even in the UFC. I think the UFC pays a lot based off merit, you know what I mean? How you perform, A. How you market yourself, B."
He compared MMA pay to other sports, stating, "Let me put it like this: I would like to get paid the way that other major – the highest-performing athletes in any sport gets paid. We're on TVs around the world, you know what I mean? We go through a lot just to make it to fight week. We lose a lot of money thats not coming to us. We used to get a lot of sponsors – we still get sponsors, but the changing of the landscape changed that for us, and it didn't leave us with much of anything at the end."
Cannonier, who says he has been ranked in the top 5 or top 10 for about seven or eight years, summed up his position bluntly: "Again, fighters are definitely at the sh*t end of the stick of this whole business, if you will."
