If you take a look at the World Series of Fighting 9 salaries, you'll notice that welterweight Josh Burkman did not receive a win bonus for his 1st round KO of Tyler Stinson. Instead, he was given $25,000 to show, and was the only winning fighter on the card without any win bonus. Today, Burkman stated on Twitter that he wants to head somewhere else, and has asked for WSOF to cut him loose:
For the record, Burkman's only other reported salaries were $8k/$8k ($16,000) vs. Gerald Harris at WSOF 1, and 16k/$16k ($32,000) when he upset Jon Fitch last June in Las Vegas. Obviously his latest base salary changed either in his title fight loss to Steve Carl or the win over Stinson.
Fansided spoke to Burkman earlier tonight, and he had this to say:
I have one fight left on my contract. I'm not very happy with the WSOF and I've asked to be released. I don't feel it's okay for a promotion to disregard a fighter's contract or the fighter's pay off a loss, but then try to fine tooth comb the same contract to hold onto a fighter off of a win. Contracts should be to take care of fighters and promotions. Not for promotions to take advantage of the fighter. I feel I need to stand up against WSOF while I can so it doesn't happen to other fighters on the down side of things. I have no idea what the future holds until I resolve things with the WSOF.
With Burkman ready to move on, will the UFC bring him back? He has impressive wins over Stinson, Aaron Simpson, and Jon Fitch, and is 9-2 overall since the promotion released him in 2008. This is (at least to my recollection) the first notable contract dispute WSOF has had to deal with, so let's see how they handle this situation and whether or not we'll see "The People's Warrior" become a free agent.