Miocic: UFC 203 payout was 'kind of a slap in the face'
Apparently, being a UFC champion isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Heavyweight king Stipe Miocic had some grievances to air in a Monday appearance on Ariel Helwani's "The MMA Hour," claiming the promotion took advantage of his affable nature to bind him to a subpar contract.
"(It’s) terrible," Miocic said, per MMAFighting's Shaun Al-Shatti. "Things definitely need to be changed. Something’s gotta change. It’s not really fair.
"I just felt like I was kinda crapped on a little bit. I try to do things right and work with them, and they just didn’t give me a great deal. That’s my own fault, but also they knew what they were doing. They took my kindness for weakness.
"They told me it was the best deal they could do, and I said, oh okay, great. And then come to find out, it wasn’t."
Miocic's gripes with the company began after he'd defended the heavyweight strap against Alistair Overeem by first-round knockout in his native Cleveland at UFC 203. The 34-year-old pocketed $600,000 for the bout, the challenger $800,000, a pay gap Miocic was unaware of until the Ohio Athletic Commission revealed the figures a few days later. Miocic then made his chagrin known to the UFC brass, but claimed he was merely reminded of the deal he'd signed in retort.
"Blah, blah, blah, blah. They just made up some excuse, like that’s the contract you signed.
"You’re making money off me in my hometown, and you’re giving the man that’s a challenger who’s never won the title in the UFC, you’re giving him more money?
"It definitely should change. But the fact that my challenger made more money than me in my last fight was just kind of a slap in the face."
The Cleveland product is coming off a banner year in which he scored three first-round knockouts, winning the title from Fabricio Werdum at UFC 198 before defending it against one of the sport's deadliest heavyweights in Overeem this past September.
The promotion is eyeing a May date for Miocic to make his second title defense, says the fighter. No UFC heavyweight champ has successfully defended the strap more than twice.