When it comes to Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock, UFC President Dana White has made his stance on their antics very clear. White was asked what he thought of Shamrock trying to organize a gang of former UFC fighters, including Ortiz, Frank Shamrock and Rampage Jackson, and he flipped it on Ken, calling him cheap and reminding him rather colorfully that he still owes the UFC $175,000 for legal bills. White also doesn’t give a crap that Ortiz is main eventing for Bellator now, and he probably had a pretty hearty laugh when Ken said that he wants to get back into wrestling again.
Regardless of White’s mockery and taunting and tauntockery, Ken and Ortiz were back at it, digging at White and the UFC, on Off the Record yesterday, and the juicy quotes were a-plenty.
On how much White and the UFC earns compared to the actual fighters:
“(These) fighters are the ones who are stepping in and putting our lives on the line and (providing) entertainment for fans to watch the fights.”
“(Myself) and Ken were probably the ones who sold the biggest pay-per- view fights to date.”
“If Dana White didn’t have you (Tito Ortiz), Chuck (Liddell), me or Frank (Shamrock) – for him to be able to make the money off our back, our sweat, our blood. Where would he be?” said Shamrock. (Via TSN)
This is the silliest argument. Basically, this is the workers vs. the CEO, and the workers think the CEO has no job without them, but they also won’t accept that, in turn, the CEO will ALWAYS go out and find cheaper workers. It sucks. IT SUCKS SO MUCH. But this is reality. They’re lucky to be doing what they do, and yes, they probably deserved a bigger piece of the pie, but we have no clue how big that pie was. And whatever piece they once had is obviously now gone, and they’re pissed that the plate is empty with crumbs.
Yes, I’m a chubby man who loves food metaphors.
Ken, on that whole $175,000 thing that he still just beat around the bush over:
“It’s kind of funny when people talk about owing. When you look at how much money was made in the UFC when I was there and the buy rates that were being brought in.”
“When I came in, I told (Dana White) that I promise you that these (pay-per-view) buy rates will jump over 100,000 (purchases). He didn’t believe me. Then lied to me about what the buy rates were because he didn’t want to pay me what I was supposed to get.”
“If anybody owes money, (Dana White) owes the fighters money,” Shamrock added.
Theoretically? Maybe. Says Ken, of course. But by the law? No. Ken owes the UFC and White money.
Now my absolute favorite quote, on the UFC’s payouts vs. boxing’s payouts:
“I look at a guy like Floyd Mayweather who makes 42 million dollars for a pay-per-view. What am I doing different that this guy is doing? I’m not just sparring, I’m going there trying to hurt a guy.
“I think you’re forgetting we’re the fighters, we’re putting on the show,” Ortiz added.
I’m not a very smart guy, I make no secret of that, but even I know that it’s going to be a long time before the UFC ever sees the kind of money that boxing somehow still inexplicably pulls. In a perfect world, boxing gets 1/10 of the money that the UFC gets, and Jon Jones is pulling those Mayweather paychecks.
But even if that happens tomorrow or five minutes from now, Ken wouldn’t see a dime of it. So I don’t know what else he expects other than us rolling our eyes at him.
