BJ Penn’s injury may have been the cause for the cancelation of this past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 97 event, but that has not stopped heavyweight Derrick Lewis from demanding his “show money."
"Show money” is the amount of money a fighter gets for showing up and competing on the card -- it's the minimum amount that somebody can make for fighting at an event. Lewis, who recently appeared on The MMA Hour, talked about how he heard of the event being canceled and about the status of his paycheck.
"They woke me out of my sleep," Lewis said. "I had like missed calls from my manager, and he told me he had bad news. I thought my opponent got hurt or something like that. He broke it down to me and said the whole card got canceled. And I was just pissed. I said, ‘are they still going to pay me?’ He said he don’t know, that we were going to talk about it this week. I said, there ain’t no talking about it, let me call Dana White or somebody to pay me, because I don’t already don’t like flying don’t make me come all the way over here for nothing. So we’re still waiting. I haven’t anything from nobody."
Lewis reiterated that he is not looking for a compensation check, but a show money check.
"I don’t like that compensated stuff," he said. "I’m thinking they are just going to pay me for all the little taxi cab rides I had to spend and the hotel and probably the plane tickets, and that’s not enough. I cut a lot of weight. I cut like 30 pounds for this fight. I was hurting man, you know, I wanted to eat. I wanted some chicken and I couldn’t eat. I was suffering."
Lewis said that as of now, he has not heard from the UFC about the situation, but will confront UFC President Dana White if he has to.
"Hell, just give me my show money, just at least give me half of it. That’s what I want, I’ll be satisfied” he said. “Either I’m going to get it and either they’re going to hand it to me in my hands, or somebody’s going to have to pay for it. Yeah I’ll call him," he said. "I don’t got [a relationship with White], but my manager, I’d make somebody give me his number and either I’ll call him or I’ll show up at his doorstep, either one. Somebody’s going to pay me."
Lewis will be headlining UFC Fight Night 102, which will be taking place on Friday, December 9th in Albany, New York.
