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Lightweight veteran Renato Moicano made headlines recently after revealing that he was turning down money that was going to be paid to him from the recent UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement.
The $375 million settlement is being dispersed to fighters who competed for the promotion between 2010 and 2017 with Moicano among those due for a payout. While attorneys handling the settlement stated that approximately 97 percent of fighters due funds are getting paid, there are a few holdouts like Moicano who passed on the money.
UFC legend Matt Brown is among those fighters due to get paid from the lawsuit settlement and while he doubts Moicano is actually turning down the money, he believes even the public statement speaks to a bigger issue facing athletes today.
“I question whether that’s true or not, too. I think Moicano may be saying that in public but I don’t know if that’s truly the case in reality, though,” Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I question that strongly knowing some inside things.
“There’s very, very few people that haven’t signed up to get their money. I doubt that Moicano’s one of them to be honest. It doesn’t make him look better saying that. I don’t think anybody is like ‘wow, bro, you’re f*cking brand loyal, good for you!’ No, everybody’s like you’re a f*cking idiot for this.”
Moicano explained his decision to turn down the money after stating that he “agreed to the terms of the contract” and those terms paid him at a rate that was “a huge deal” for him.
After spending 15 years in the UFC, Brown understands that loyalty towards the promotion only goes so far, especially with the way things are run now. During the start of his UFC career, Brown felt like the organization was a family with only a few key executives at the top making decisions but that’s no longer the case after Endeavor purchased the organization for over $4 billion back in 2016.
Since then, Brown says the UFC is no different from any other corporation out there on a mission to make money and treating everything as a business.
In fact, the $375 million settlement is proof that the UFC is even treating the lawsuit as a business move because the potential losses from going to trial and losing could have been much greater.
“It’s a corporation now. You’re not changing Dana’s day at all [by taking the money],” Brown said. “Once the lawsuit was settled, Dana [White] did not think it for one second after that. He claims he didn’t think about it before that but I doubt that’s actually the case. But after it was settled, it was a drop in the bucket for them, the amount of money. It’s a f*cking write off for them, too, of all things, which is not a write off for us. We have to pay taxes on it but it’s a write off for the UFC, which is insanity to me.
“It’s from a corporation. It’s like if Apple had a class action lawsuit against them and had to pay out and then you said ‘No, I love my iPhone.’ It’s literally the same thing. The money’s already paid out.”
Brown believes fighters attempting to curry favor with the UFC for any reason speaks to a much bigger problem in the sport.
Unlike say the NFL with 32 teams all competing against each other and vying for the same pool of players, which then leads to bigger and bigger contracts being offered and paid, the UFC has set up a much different structure.
As the largest and only profitable MMA company currently operating in the sport, Brown knows fighters are all trying to compete for the UFC and that ultimately gives the organization a massive leg up when it comes to negotiations and how much money is being paid to the athletes.
“What this sport has become, the way that the UFC has built it is not proper,” Brown said. “What it leads to the way it’s built — if you’re Dana White, it’s proper, if you’re on the business side, you sold your business for $4 billion, you did the right thing for yourself and your company. The business doesn’t care about doing things right. The business cares about making money and that’s what the business is there for.
“The promoters should be competing for the fighters. With the way the UFC has been structured and built is the fighters are competing for Dana’s acknowledgment and Dana’s love. That is completely opposite the way it should be.”
Brown believes it all boils down to the central problem plaguing fighters right now, especially when somebody like Moicano is just passing on money due to him.
“Moicano, rather than taking money that he fought for as a prizefighter, he wants Dana’s love and acknowledgment more than the money, thinking that it’s going to get him more money in the future,’ Brown said. “That should be a very f*cking clear sign of how flipped this script is and how f*cked up it really is.”