Reigning UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, is hopeful that the new contract extension he signed with the promotion will improve the pay for all fighters.
Adesanya spoke with the media at the UFC 271 post-fight press conference following his unanimous decision victory over former UFC middleweight champ, Robert Whittaker, in their rematch on Saturday night and talked about the impact he believes his new deal will have on the issue of fighter pay.
“Like I said, this is the first step,” Adesanya said (h/t MMA Fighting). “[UFC President] Dana [White] already said they had dinner with him before he went back to Cameroon, they’re going to have dinner when they come back. So yeah, people make mistakes. The UFC’s filled with humans, humans make mistakes. Human error. But we can always amend those mistakes, and honestly, rising tides lifts all the ships. And with this, I feel like it’s the first step in this trickle-down effect to the rest of the fighters and lifting everyone up. I’m not saying, like, pay the [debuting fighters] some crazy money. No, just pay them enough to train, feed their family, and actually not have a second or third job. Because we’re UFC fighters. I love this company; I’ve been wanting to be a part of this company – you saw my post when I was here in the same f*cking arena seven years ago for UFC 192, practicing on the scale before I got yelled at. I wanted to be here for so long, so now that I’m here, I’m fortunate to be in the position I’m in to sign this new deal, but the UFC’s going to do right. I feel like this is the first step. Francis started it off, and I’m getting my dues as well. But trust me, it wasn’t just handed to me. It’s just not brought to the media, so you guys can go write headlines about it. We fight for what we have, and I feel like this is going to trickle down to the rest of the fighters because, yeah, it’s time."
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