Fronted by Chris Nelson

Over on Five Ounces of Pain, Sam Caplan has a nice piece throwing the "Muhammad Ali Act should apply to MMA" argument under the bus. However, in article and in the comments section, a discussion regarding the notion of the "living wage" has Caplan arguing that all UFC fighters should be paid enough that they be able to make a good living doing nothing but fighting:

However, a union would have the power to go to the UFC and set a higher-standard for minimum payments. Furthermore, a union would have the power to go to a promotion and negotiate things such as improved health benefits

. . .

A fighter should be happy with $26,000 a year? Only someone who lives with their parents would say such a thing. Maybe a 22-year old fighter should be happy with that, but what about a 30-year old fighter with a wife and kids?

Bloody Elbow's own Michael Rome neatly rebuts the moral arguments for a living wage:

Unlike many of the working poor who have structural pressure keeping them down, or come from broken homes or other terrible situations that make success hard, fighters have made a completely voluntary and unique choice to make a living while fighting. They made this choice with the clear knowledge of how much fighters make, nobody is hiding the ball from them, and there is nobody forcing them to do it. This is the perfect example of a market tradeoff where information is nearly perfect for both parties, there’s no reason to interfere.

However, both of these arguments address the issue from the wrong frame.  The central issue with the living wage is not that it set the fighters against the promotions.  The central issue is that it penalizes talent in favor of experience.

At this point in time, the difference in payouts between a top fighter in a minor league promotion and a fighter on his first UFC contract is significant, but not overwhelming. Both fighters will probably still need to work a day job or act as a trainer to supplement their income, which will result in less time to train and a lower rate of improvement in their game. If the minor league prospect gets promoted and fights the UFC fighter with two or three fights under his belt, both are working with similar levels of training and experience beyond the difference in "UFC jitters." If the prospect is more talented, the prospect has a better than even chance to win the fight.

The living wage changes that completely. The inexperienced UFC fighter, fighting with a living wage, has been training full-time for nearly a year. He trained full-time and is in the best shape of his life against the entering prospect, who still works at Arby's full time. Even if the entering prospect is more talented, his odds are poorer against a fighter who is less talented and marginally more experienced, but vastly more prepared.

While the super-prospects will still likely do fine, the mid-level prospects, the late bloomers, and the toss-ups, will experience much more attrition early in their careers, as they get demolished in their first few UFC fights by less talented fighters who have trained full time for years. While this would be a problem in any sport, the problem is magnified in MMA, where experience and training plays a relatively larger part in competition than talent. One ugly possibility rears its head: a class of less talented, but older and better trained fighters, knocking off talent as it comes up thanks in large part to years of full-time training. In the current UFC system, less talented fighters will decline to sub-living wage payouts, forcing them to spend less time training and opening the window for a prospect. That prospect, still working a day job but talented and hungry, has a decent chance against the less talented older fighter who also isn't training full time, and doesn't feel the need to work for those substandard payouts.

The living wage will instead result in the prospect working his day job, fighting older less talented fighters who can train full time and are holding onto that living wage for dear life. He's more likely to lose his first few fights, get pushed back out of the UFC onto sub-standard minor league payouts, and drop out of the fight game.

The way to counter this is by having a coherent minor league system that promotes full-time training, similar to what Major League Baseball has with their minor league system and NFL with college football. Under such a system, an MMA prospect would have both hunger, as he is still being paid next to nothing, and a clear method to satisfy that hunger: train full time, get a call up, and win some UFC fights. However, until the UFC or MMA in general develops such a minor league system, a living wage in the UFC would be a disaster for the fighters trying to break into the big leagues without the luxury of full time training.

In a UFC fight, the advantage usually goes to whoever is more talented and more hungry. But if UFC fighters earned a living wage, the advantage wouldn't go to the more talented, more hungry fighter. The advantage would go the fighter who has been in the UFC longer.