These guys also don’t generate much revenue.

Great fights don’t really matter that much if nobody sees them. I want to see what the ratings were before I pass judgement. Unfortunately I don’t think Versus is the best platform for the necessary exposure and without that the fighters will never get paid.

Here we go again first off Maggie is wrong calling Pellegrino/Neer boring is ridiculous secondly these guys are getting paid what they are worth. They’d be lucky to get half as much in other promotions didn’t anybody learn from Affliction you can’t go nuts and overpay for talent if you’re going to build a stable mma org it’s that simple.

Not fights. Maybe if Maggie had 1 ounce of sports knowledge in that thick skull she’d know that.

That’s why the WEC should not do PPVs, their only 2 marketable names both just took major losses.

Pellegrino/Neer was boring, it just wasn’t exciting.

Who’s surprised the WEC was more exciting? Is Maggie just catching on? These are things people know. Another thing is the UFC is the premier MMA organization. The WEC is a small, exciting promotion with a very bright future. It sucks these guys have to be at the forefront when there’s not any money in it. Props to Maggie for trying to get more people excited about. I try not to be too hard on Maggie because it sounds like she has watched a handful of fights. The combination of her enthusiasm and lack of knowledge is almost cute.
As for the little guys wanting more money. Everybody wants more money. I want more money. Can’t hate on those guys for trying to get it. That being said, if I want to make more money I need a new job or I need to find a way to make the company I work for more money. Maybe Torres and Faber should put on some weight and ask to be moved to the UFC or start brokering a TV deal.

The fans, the fighters, the sponsors, Zuffa, everyone wins. Well maybe except Versus and some of the WEC LWs.

The UFC could put on more live events on free tv with the addition of two more weight classes, and on Spike TV they’d reach a lot more people, to say nothing of a future deal with ESPN or ABC.

UFC events would also be more exciting on average with the smaller guys bringing the action, and you’d have very few PPVs where a title wasn’t on the line.

Also, if the UFC wants to invade Mexico, the WEC fighters would be invaluable, as there are lots of top Mexican Americans at BW and FW.

Finally, and most relevant to this article, the better fighters at BW and FW would also be getting the sort of money that’s closer to what their peers in the higher weight classes get, instead of a fraction of that. Yes, sponsors make up a big portion of their salaries, but the sponsors pay a lot more for UFC exposure than anywhere else, and furthermore this is not a lifetime career for any of these guys. Most fighters retire by their early 40s, which is why they better have a decent amount of money saved up by then if they don’t want to start over in a new career when they retire. You could be a top 10 fighter in Featherweight or Bantamweight and still be 3 losses away from working retail. A lot of these guys have families to feed, and just because Zuffa can get away with under-paying them doesn’t make it right.