For UFC president Dana White, it's very simple — you don't get paid not to fight.
A big debate in the MMA world currently is whether Stephen Thompson deserves to get paid his show money for his canceled UFC 291 fight with Michel Pereira.
Thompson made the weight for the welterweight matchup, but Pereira came in three pounds heavy at 174 pounds. Usually, fighters who miss weight give up a percentage of their purse to their opponent and the fight goes on.
However, “Wonderboy” decided against fighting Pereira as he didn't want to give his opponent any added advantage, especially as he still harbors ambitions to become a UFC champion even at the age of 40. Thompson would also reveal he was disappointed not to be paid by the UFC despite doing his part and making the weight.
White was finally broached on the topic and provided a lengthy answer behind the promotion's reasoning.
“So how that works is, guys just don't get paid to not fight. That's not how that works,” White said at the Contender Series post-fight press conference (via MMA News). “Guys have been paid, we've taken care of guys. Listen, if you come in and you're making short money, we take care of you. You come in and you don't fight — first of all , you decided not to fight. The guy was three pounds overweight, whatever it was. You get a piece of his purse if you take the fight. But if you'd decide you don't wanna take the fight — we also offered him another fight.
“There's a much bigger story behind the scenes. And no, you don't just show up and say, ‘Yeah, I'm not gonna fight, I want a quarter of a million dollars.' That's not the way it works. It hasn't worked that way for anybody. What we do is we try to get you another fight, we try to turn you around quickly. If you don't turn around quickly, then we try to figure out, ‘What did it cost for your camp? We'll reimburse you.'”
White went on to reveal that the UFC are still working things out with Thompson so that he does get paid and taken care of. However, Thompson getting the full show money is still out of the question for the UFC head honcho.
“There's a lot of different ways that this gets worked out,” White added. “You don't just go, ‘Yeah, this guy's three pounds over, I'm not gonna fight, and no I won't take another fight two weeks later, and pay me my show money!' Not how it works. You don't fight, you don't get paid, necessarily. But we always make sure that we take care of everybody.
“We're working it out with ‘Wonderboy' right now. It's all being worked out behind the scenes, and this should all be worked out by Saturday.”
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