Trading Shots: What's it going to take for fighters to embrace an association?

After yet another entrant into the race to collective professional MMA fighters, it’s tough to tell what it will take for a fighters association to move past the announcement and planning stage and into real operations. In this week’s Trading Shots, retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes to discuss whether or not the MMA Athletes Association might just be it.

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Downes: Ben, MMA was totally redefined in the past week. Can you feel it? Bjorn Rebney, Georges St-Pierre and several high-profile UFC fighters announced the creation of the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association this past Wednesday.

We don’t know a lot about the MMAAA (like who’s financing them) or how they plan to ensure 50 percent of revenues go back to fighters. All this is a cause for concern, but there seems to be momentum behind this association that others never possessed. Is the MMAAA the game changer it claims to be, or just another pretender?

Fowlkes: Already it has something that no other would-be fighters association has: the public support of active, popular fighters who are in good standing with the UFC.

Or, you know, some of them are in good standing with the UFC. Some are at odds. Some go back and forth. Others have had only occasional issues, which really underscores how few high-profile fighters there are who have never feuded with the company brass at least a little bit.

So the MMAAA has that notable support going for it. It also has a questionable acronym and some baggage in the form of the former Bellator boss Rebney. I wonder what the effect of the latter will be.

I’ve talked to a few fighters in the days since this announcement, and almost all of them expressed some degree of concern over Rebney’s involvement. Then there’s the intentionally vague plan of action, the intentionally obscured source of financial support, and the lingering suspicion that this is all a proxy war between two powerful talent agencies.

It’s in those drawbacks that it starts to feel more like the other associations, all of which have something to give a concerned fighter pause. The MMA Fighters Association is backed (publicly, at least) mostly by former UFC fighters with axes to grind. It’s also relying heavily on a lawsuit that won’t be resolved any time soon, so there’s little hope for current fighters looking for quick change.

The Professional Fighters Association just lost the support of two of its most vocal proponents over its handling of sensitive information, so that’s not a great sign for its future.

Now there’s the MMAAA, which would seem great if not for the exiled fight promoter with a questionable record on fighter treatment telling us to pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.

Still, I wonder if we aren’t letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Should fighters resign themselves to the possibility that no association is going to be flawless out of the gates? Or is that kind of like accelerating your plane down the runway while ignoring the smoke coming from the engines, telling yourself you’ll fix it once you get airborne?

Downes: The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Let’s say that the MMAAA is an elaborate form of corporate warfare. Should that concern fighters? If you can make some extra money in a billionaire battle, why not?

That line of thinking is tempting, but it does present some concerns. It’s like in those cop shows where they use a criminal to catch a master thief. We need someone who can beat them at their own game! Sometimes it works out; sometimes the police get double-crossed.

The MMAAA may wind up being a disappointment, but something needs to be done. Carla Esparza takes to social media to sell her “TUF” championship motorcycle to make ends meet. Patrick Cummins then tweets that he can’t buy the bike because it costs more than what he’s made all year.

Either by not paying fighters enough, or by keeping fighters idle, the UFC makes it difficult for athletes to make a living. Anything done to remedy that, even if it means Rebney is a driving force, is welcome.

My biggest concern is if other fighters will embrace the MMAAA. It always helps to have respected people like GSP, Cain Velasquez, and others up there, but is it enough? Donald Cerrone doesn’t strike me as the fearful type, and even he’s scared that taking a prominent stand could adversely affect his career.

Besides fear, there are plenty of other reasons for fighters to avoid the MMAAA. There’s greed (lots of people think being a “company man” and sucking up to the boss will bring monetary gain, which is also the reason I tell Dann Stupp about all the mean things you say about him). There’s short-sightedness (the same reason fighters don’t see the value in talking to the media or marketing themselves). There’s the tendency on the part of some fighters to think that all they need to do is focus on what’s happening inside the cage.

Then again, this behavior isn’t exclusive to MMA competitors. Remember when your reporter friend Ariel Helwani was banned by the UFC for about two days? All your colleagues in the so-called media were incensed. Enough was enough, and it was time for a change! Yet nobody took to the barricades. Everyone was too busy doing their own thing. So if fighters end up looking out for themselves, who can blame them?

Fowlkes: I think what you mean is, remember when Helwani was banned “for life” by the UFC? But then the outcry was so intense that the UFC caved after only two days. So if you’re looking for an example of an unchecked abuse of power, maybe look elsewhere.

You’re right, though, that getting fighters to embrace any one association is the hard part. That’s why I worry about the signals the MMAAA is sending right at the start. Something like this, you don’t have much of a chance to calm doubts and fears over time. In order to make progress, you need them to join you. And in order for them to join you, they need to trust you. If everybody hangs back and waits to see whether you can pull it off, how far can you really go?

But fighters have long been in this catch-22 situation. They see Esparza trying to hock her “TUF” motorcycle just like we do. Maybe they tell themselves they don’t need to worry about it, because that’ll never be them. Unless they’ve already experienced similar struggles, like Cummins has, by which point they’re branded as just another loser malcontent when they say something.

If you speak up before you’re in trouble, you’ll get yourself in trouble. If you speak up after, hey, you’re just mad it didn’t work out for you.

The question, at this point, is not whether fighters would be better off with an association to speak for them. Obviously, they would. The question is how to get there.

I understand that you don’t want to bicker over who leads the charge for so long that you never actually move, But you also don’t want to fling yourself off the cliff in the hopes that it’ll teach you to fly. And if the guy who’s there to provide strategic advice didn’t foresee this response to his involvement, how confident are you feeling about his overall strategy right now?

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.