Trading Shots: Are UFC Fight Pass events a good deal for UFC Fight Pass fighters?

If a fighter scores a knockout at 4 a.m. in an island country on the other side of the world, does it really make a sound? That’s the question in this week’s Trading Shots, as MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and former UFC/WEC fighter Danny Downes look at what fighters are getting out of the UFC’s aggressive campaign of global domination.

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Fowlkes: Danny, let me start us off this week with a scenario. Say you’re still fighting in the UFC. Say the glamorous life you now lead as an MMA writer is still off in the hypothetical distance, and the better part of your everyday life is still dedicated to becoming a more efficient distributor of pain and human suffering (I was there the night you put a hurting on “The Mongolian Wolf,” so don’t even try to tell me he didn’t suffer some).

You’re training hard. You’re feeling good. Then the UFC comes to you and says, “Good news, we got you a fight! It’s in New Zealand. On UFC Fight Pass. In the middle of the damn night back here in the U.S.”

Are you happy with that? Are your sponsors? And if the answer to both those questions is no, is there anything at all that you can do about it?

Downes: My only experience fighting internationally was at WEC 49 in Edmonton. It was my WEC debut, and I took that fight on five days’ notice. Realizing that it was a way to get into the organization, I took the fight. Was it the best situation? Not really. I don’t know how fighting in New Zealand compares to fighting in Canada, but any competition outside the U.S. presents a certain set of difficulties.

There are some minor annoyances like not being able to find distilled water to help with your weight cuts, but there are larger issues, too. Normally, the UFC covers airfare for you and one cornerman. Many fighters like to have two coaches – usually one grappling and one striking – in their corner, so they pay for the second cornerman to come out.

When you fight in Las Vegas, it’s not too big of a deal. When you fight in New Zealand, however, that airfare and per diem can add up. The UFC often does a good job of booking teammates on the same card so you can double up the airfare, but that’s not always the case.

Taxes are always an issue, too. I remember the Canadian government taking 20 percent of my paycheck right off the bat. When I had to pay the management and coaching fees, those percentages were taken from the gross paycheck and not the post-Canadian tax amount.

In the interest of avoiding Fowlkes-ian levels of verboseness, I’ll try to wrap this up. Are there difficulties/annoyances/frustrations fighting outside of the U.S.? Yes. Is every single UFC fighter under contract an American? No. How many events does the UFC hold in Japan? What about all the fights Mark Hunt has had in the Western Hemisphere? Aren’t these situations just part of the business?

Fowlkes: Fighting in other countries? Yeah, that’s part of the business. Ask the Brazilian contingent, which has been doing it for years. But what if you’re being asked to deal with all that – the tax stuff, the cornerman stuff, the distilled water scavenger hunt – just so you can fight on an Internet stream that the vast majority of fans will ignore? A stream that they are, in fact, almost encouraged to ignore by the forces telling them that these events are “not for them” anyway? Doesn’t that make it just a little bit (by which I mean a lot bit) worse?

We’ve already heard about the impact on sponsor pay. The UFC might be making more money from foreign TV deals or UFC Fight Pass subscriptions, but that doesn’t help you much if you’re the fighter flying halfway around the world to make six and six in a 4 a.m. fight that even your friends might not wake up to watch. Plus there’s the fact that, if you’re not actually from the region from which you’ll be streaming live on the Internet, you can kind of tell what the UFC thinks of you. Headliners like Nate Marquardt or Gegard Mousasi aside, the UFC isn’t in the habit of throwing its best stuff on UFC Fight Pass cards.

For instance, look at a guy like Neil Magny, who was coming off back-to-back UFC wins on a pay-per-view and a FOX Sports 1 card. You can’t tell me he was stoked when he heard he’d be fighting on the prelims of a UFC Fight Pass card in New Zealand. He even scored a knockout win, but how many people watched it live or bothered to go back and check it out afterward, especially with another UFC Fight Night event on TV later the same day? Isn’t he kind of (and by kind of I mean totally) getting screwed here?

Downes: You know what I like about you Ben? You can take the most complex issues and simplify them. Where other people see nuance and multi-faceted problems, you can speak in absolutes. I bet you would have been a blast during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Let’s take your Magny example. Did he get a raw deal? I would say so. If I were in his position, I would certainly be upset. You win a few fights and now you have to go to New Zealand and try to convince friends and family to watch you fight at an unreasonable hour. Having said that, what about Robert Whittaker, Soa Palelei and James Te Huna? How often do they get to fight in front of their countrymen? How do they convince family and friends to watch them fight in Las Vegas?

I know Thomas Friedman and you think the world is flat, but that’s not the case. When you are an international organization with fighters from a number of different countries, someone will be at a relative disadvantage on every card. The UFC has done events in Albuquerque and Denver. Is that fair to fighters who train at sea level? Sure, you could get training masks and rent out one of those hyperbaric chambers, but that costs money, just like extra airfare.

On the CME podcast, you’ve talked about how Irish fans are upset that their card features a bunch of guys that they’ve already seen on the Cage Warriors scene. Isn’t the only way to solve that problem by sending American fighters who end up “getting screwed,” as you so eloquently put it?

Fowlkes: Ah, so that’s what the UFC is up to here. It’s all an elaborate favor to the Kiwis on the roster, thanking them for their loyal service by letting them fight in front of their countrymen. How kind. How thoughtful.

Look, I’m not trying to make the case that it’s an unfair competitive disadvantage to fight in a foreign land. That’s sports. Sometimes you have to play an away game, and you deal with that. What I’m saying is that this model we’ve been seeing the past couple months – one UFC Fight Night abroad via UFC Fight Pass, another the same day on FOX Sports 1 – is a bad deal for fighters. It makes it harder for them to stand out, harder for them to turn their exposure into cash on the sponsor market, and harder for them to build a following in the precious little time they have to make a name for themselves in this sport.

I get why the UFC is doing it. It thinks it’s good business. More TV rights deals. More ticket sales. In theory, at least, more fans globally. I’m just not sure that theory will hold up in practice, and in the meantime you’ve got fighters who are taking the exact same risks and making the same physical sacrifices for a lot less in the way of potential rewards. I guess I’m a little surprised that someone like yourself, who has taken those risks and made those sacrifices, isn’t more sympathetic to it.

Downes: Ouch. You went right to the heart on that one. Our big feature on collective bargaining will have to wait until next week, but I don’t really appreciate you calling me a scab. I’m very sympathetic to fighters in this position. All things being equal, you always try to avoid fighting overseas. Every fighter on the roster wants to be on the main card of a pay-per-view. Unfortunately, fighter demand exceeds the supply of open spots on those fight cards. You may not want to fly to New Zealand, but what other option do you have?

Take my former teammate Mike Rhodes. He lost his debut UFC fight and was then asked to fight Robert Whittaker. How was he supposed to leverage Joe Silva and Dana White? Whether you work at an Applebee’s, a steel factory, or the UFC, if you aren’t in a position of power, you don’t have a lot of options.

Fighters sacrifice a lot to compete in the UFC. Some have to sacrifice more than others. Fighters are irrationally optimistic. Despite all logic and statistics, they honestly believe they can win every fight, every night, and walk off with a “Performance of the Night” bonus. They also think that they’ll be taken care of if they “do the UFC a solid.”

Is that trust misplaced? Depends who you ask. Talk to 10 different UFC fighters and you’ll probably get 10 different answers (if they answer honestly). Fighters are like any other employee – they have a litany of complaints. Some are fair, some are unfair. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Vegas, Ireland, Dubai or New Zealand. You still have a job to do.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.