Dana White is fed up with the whole issue of Randy Couture leaving the UFC organization. He defended the UFC by saying that if all of the fighters in his organization were unhappy, they would probably be doing the same thing as Randy. Deep down inside, Dana feels that “Couture’s up to something,” but nobody really knows what it is.
There are several other organizations that are already jumping on Randy, trying to see if they can negotiate something with the heavyweight champion. Could Randy face Fedor Emelianenko one day? There are always possiblities for dream fights like these if the money is right, but when Dana was asked if Randy could fight somewhere else he quickly replied with “Oh he definitely belongs to me, he’s under contract to me. No doubt about it” almost as if to say that if Randy wanted to fight outside the UFC, Zuffa Inc. would be entitled some sort of compensation.
Dana goes on to talk about his fighters, other organizations and Randy Couture. Here’s the snip:
“I think this is a bigger picture than what guys make…Couture’s up to
something, I don’t know what the endgame is here…The whole thing is
mind-boggling to me…This is not Randy
Couture. I’ve dealt with the guy for eight years and I would have never
expected this. But he’s upset and we’ll either figure it out or we
won’t…Randy Couture is a multimillionaire, don’t ever feel sorry for
a multimillionaire, OK?…A lot of these guys are multimillionaires,
they make millions and millions of dollars…I’ve got these guys for three-, four-, five-, six-fight deals and
then
their contracts come up, why are they re-signing with me? Why do they
keep re-signing with me when all these other guys are out there
throwing crazy money around? Because we’re paying these guys very well
and we take care of them. He just signed a new contract that he was
thrilled with, eight months ago … and now apparently he’s not happy
with it. I’ll tell you right now, there isn’t anyone in this industry that takes
care of their fighters better than we do…Sometimes it takes leaving
to realize that.”
With
the UFC making millions of dollars almost every month through pay per
view sales alone, the question arises…Are these fighters getting paid
what they deserve? Did Keith Jardine deserve $14,000 to fight Chuck Liddell plus another $14,000 to win? Meanwhile, Chuck Liddell would get paid $500,000 win or lose. Is this even fair?
Dana White replied to this by stating:
“If these guys are unhappy with their deals, they’d all be walking out
just like Randy Couture. Let me tell you what, there’s a lot of guys
out there right now throwing money around. You’ve got Mark Cuban out
there throwing money around, these other guys that are with Showtime
throwing money around, the IFL’s thrown so much money around, they’re
almost gone. There’s a lot of guys spending a lot of money and making a
lot of offers”
