Mitrione: ‘I’m losing a $30k sponsor’

“There’s no sugar-coating this, but the rankings are rather arbitrary. We don’t know much about this panel. How were they chosen? What credentials do they have to have to be on the panel? We have no clue about any of that.

That’s very concerning to me, especially considering that our pay is soon going to be based off this system. What I know is that my money is directly correlated to who I fight that’s ranked ahead of me. The higher my own ranking gets, the more I get paid.

I’ve got a sponsor that’s paying me $30 grand a fight, and I’m gonna lose that sponsor. That’s not good business, and there’s nothing I can do about that. From what I’m being told, the new sponsorship deal with Reebok is going to be way less than the sponsor I’m gonna lose.

There’s one thing that’s an absolute guarantee with me. I’m either going to win big or I’m going to lose big. There’s no in-between for me, and you’re gonna remember my fight. I’m fearless when it comes down to it, winning or losing. I’m not afraid to be successful and I’m not afraid of failing. Because of that, I go at it as hard as I can. Joe Silva came right out and told me why they have me as the opening fight on the main card and that’s because I set the tempo for it. Even if you’re not my fan, you watch my fights because I’m polarizing enough for people to tune in just to see me get smoked.

What that did, is it took away my name value. So you’re telling me that I’m gonna get the same sponsor money as the Number 12 ranked 45, 35, 25, and 15 pounders….Hell even the 55ers. Do we even know who the Number 12 ranked 55er is off the top of the head? Who’s the Number 12 ranked 85er? Who knows? I’ve got 13 fights in the UFC. That should count for something.

I can’t really bitch and complain, because we haven’t been told a thing about it. We have no clue what’s going to happen with this sponsor money system at all. I could be getting my panties in a bunch for absolutely no reason at all. I have no clue. They might turn around and say, ‘If you have this many fights in the UFC, you’re guaranteed this amount of the sponsor money at this particular ranking.’

They could do all kinds of things. I have no clue, and I don’t know if the Fertittas and Dana even know exactly how it’s going to work. I would imagine that those details are being ironed out over the next couple months.

In a longwinded rant, popular UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione tells Bloodyelbow.com’s Steph Daniels that he’s losing a guaranteed $30k per fight over the UFC’s new Reebok deal.

Will the fighters benefit from the new policy, or is this bad for business?