Michael Page is bothered to see Zuffa Boxing pay such a large purse to one of its most recent signees.
British boxer Conor Benn left Matchroom to join Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing for a reported $15 million, one-fight deal. The payout has been met with shock from several UFC fighters, including former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley.
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Add Michael Page to the list.
“It’s not something that I’m happy about,” Page said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “When the announcement of Paramount, big money, partnership came, people were asking me, ‘Are you excited about this?’ My answer was, ‘Well, what does that mean for the fighters? Until we understand how that’s going to translate to the fighters, there’s nothing really to be excited about.’ Then I heard about the increase in bonus structure, and this is why I wasn’t bothered to be excited initially because, for me, that doesn’t do enough comparatively to the amount of money they’ve just brought in for themselves. Dana White’s always been quite excited about going into the boxing world.
“But to see it and how highly he values people away from the sport that built his reputation, it’s just upsetting, to be fair. It’s disappointing more than anything. That’s all I’ll say on that. I love Conor Benn, but he’s nowhere near the best in his field. … I hate hearing stories of fighters getting to what is the pinnacle of your career in terms of the UFC and still being broke. That just shouldn’t exist unless you’re completely terrible with money. In any other sport, when you get to the pinnacle, there’s a lot of other things that are settled in your life. This is something people have complained about, Francis Ngannou being the heavyweight champion of the world and broke, borrowing money from a friend of his, (Kamaru) Usman, but why was he even in that situation is the question for me.”
Page (24-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC) is currently confused by the state of his relationship with the UFC after they offered him rising welterweight Sam Patterson for UFC Fight Night 270 (Paramount+) on March 21 from The O2 in London. He opened up about the strange matchmaking after coming off back-to-back wins over formerly unbeaten Shara Magomedov and ex-UFC middleweight title challenger Jared Cannonier.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Michael Page finds Conor Benn’s $15 million payday ‘disappointing’
