Ronda Rousey continues to make the media rounds following the shocking announcement that she is returning to the world of MMA for a mega-fight against Gina Carano on Netflix.
During an appearance on The Jim Rome Show, the Women’s MMA pioneer elaborated further on how negotiations with Dana White and UFC fell apart for the comeback fight.
Featured below is an excerpt from the discussion where she touches on this topic with her thoughts:
“Originally, I wanted to do it for New Year’s, and I went to [Dana] and was like, ‘You always say I’m the best fighter you’ve ever worked with, reward me for it. Don’t punish me for being easy to work with. Give me the best deal you’ve ever given anybody.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna go back and get you the best deal I ever had.’ He came back and he literally brought me a deal where I would make more per pay-per-view buy than anybody in history. If I hit my historical numbers, which I know we would have been able to exceed, I would have made as much as I did in my entire career. I was like, ‘Hell yeah, Dana. High five. Thanks.’ Gina needed more time. It happened to go to the other side of when the ESPN deal and the PPV model would be ending and they would be going to streaming.
“They are now a publicly traded company. How do I put it? They didn’t want to set a precedent of giving me the guaranteed money that I deserve because once I raise that tide, it lifts all the boats. They just made a $7.7 billion deal at Paramount. It’s in their best interest to not put on the best fights possible, but spend as little money as possible so they can keep it. Dana is now legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. It’s not just about proving the concept of fighting and putting on the best fights possible and proving that this is a sport to be taken seriously. Now that they’ve sold the company, it’s kind of out of Dana’s hands, unfortunately. Now, it’s falling onto Hunter Campbell and UFC Corp, where they don’t care about putting on the best fights possible, they care about putting on the most cost-effective fights possible. It no longer made sense for me to go over there because they didn’t want to pay us the money we deserve, because then, for the rest of the time of the deal, they’re going to have to pay everybody else more. I decided to look elsewhere.”
Watch the complete Ronda Rousey interview from The Jim Rome Show via the YouTube player embedded below.
