Ronda Rousey‘s attack on the UFC for their treatment of fighters and their lack of respect when it comes to paying their athletes has earned the support of Joe Rogan.
The UFC has always been the pinnacle of mixed martial arts since its integration into the mainstream media. Fighting, winning titles, and cementing your legacy inside the octagon has been many fighters’ dreams, but that could all change if Netflix takes the sport seriously, believes Rogan.
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Netflix is on the verge of showcasing its first MMA event when Ronda Rousey collides with Gina Carano on May 16. Ahead of the event, Rousey hit out at her former employers, advocating for her fellow competitors amid the ongoing pay structure controversy. Insisting she made some great arguments in her rant against the UFC, Joe Rogan questioned if Netflix could add some much-needed competition to the fight game.
“Ronda Rousey, she’s promoting the Netflix fight,” Rogan said. “She had this big, long speech about the UFC selling for $7 billion [and] these fighters aren’t making enough money. And you know, look, she made some good points, and the most important thing is that she gets the conversation out there and it puts pressure on the UFC to pay people more.”
“If Netflix can become successful at MMA, if they can become successful putting cards together and pulling fighters away. Like, right now they’re doing a one-off, right? It’s a one-off and it’s kind of a gimmicky thing… It’s gonna be crazy.”
“But, if anybody’s got that kind of money, it’s Netflix. They throw around a lot of ridiculous money. They make so much money. So they can kind of do that. The question is: Are they going to do that more than once?”
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Ronda Rousey booked her return to the cage when she locks horns with Gina Carano next. The fight, which has been teased for over a decade, is big enough to gain traction without the addition of other significant names, but the show will still feature several other stars.
Francis Ngannou and Nate Diaz opted to jump on board the Netflix card, facing off against Philipe Lins and Mike Perry, respectively. Since the announcement of their inclusion, Joe Rogan has started to consider Netflix a true contender in the MMA space, as long as it can sign more well-known martial artists.
“So if they do that more than once, then what happens is it’s all about the name of the fighters, just like boxing. [In] boxing, no one cares if it’s Golden Boy or Bob Arum. Nobody cares about that. What they care about is who’s fighting who… So, if Netflix can kind of do the boxing thing on Netflix with big-name stars, they could be a major player, and that will elevate everybody’s pay scale. There’s a lot of people like, ‘Oh, Ronda, how could she turn her back on the UFC and talk sh*t like that?’ If what she’s saying doesn’t make any sense, she can’t say it, right? So, if what she’s saying makes sense, then you have to go; she’s got a point. Yeah. She’s got a point. She’s got a point.”
“They sold it for seven billion dollars, or whatever it is. They got this seven-billion-dollar deal, whatever the f***ing deal was with Paramount. Not even selling it, sold rights to it. That makes sense. She’s making sense. So if she’s saying this and Netflix listens, and if someone comes along and they’re a shrewd businessman, they go, ‘Look, there’s a lot of people, their contracts are coming up, and when these people’s contracts are coming up, let’s get into negotiations.’ Then all of a sudden, some people start drifting over.”
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“If you get like an Islam Makhachev who starts leaving and they leave and go fight in Netflix, and then they can talk four or five top major contenders into doing [it]… You’re gonna need something like Netflix, and Netflix can kind of pull it off because Netflix has a massive promotional machine, but they need big names.”
