By Former UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold had an eventful fight week for UFC 278, raising several salient points about fighter pay, announcing his retirement and smearing his bleeding face all-over opponent Paulo Costa between those two things. The now-retired fighter made an issue-specific face turn with his open discussion of the unjust distribution of income within the UFC, including a freeze on bonus payment put into effect in 2012 which means fighters today actually earn bonuses half as big as those awarded at UFC 100 in 2009 despite both inflation and the astronomical growth of the UFC’s income stream in the intervening years. Rockhold displayed a willingness to both deeply analyze the UFC’s payment structures and then share his thoughts on what that analysis revealed, before going into the Octagon, receiving a bloody-faucet of a nose and using his own face as a brush upon a canvas of Costa.
After the event, some noted that Rockhold receiving a $50,000 fight of the night bonus was a bit ironic in light of his criticisms about fighter pay before having it pointed out to them that, actually, no it fucking wasn’t, that isn’t how irony works nor is him receiving a bonus in any way relevant to his discussion of compensation levels so stop doing the UFC’s PR for them when they don’t even pay you, jesus fucking christ.
