Taking over with the Fertitta brothers, head honcho Dana White has ushered UFC to newer heights. But the intricate inner workings of that are not always as public. In a recent revelation, flyweight legend Demetrious Johnson weighed in on White’s pioneering approach to incentivize fighters.
‘Mighty Mouse’ is among the GOAT candidates. He made 11 consecutive title defenses which broke the former record of Anderson Silva [10]. However, exposure and maximum fight finances were always uphill treks. Johnson has beefed over PPV points with Dana White many times. However, Johnson experienced the organization’s concerted efforts to encourage fighter promotions during his reign.
When Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook first came out, the UFC would bring us to the ‘Fighter Summit’ and say, ‘You guys need to build your brand. It’s free… The more people want to see you fight, the more money you’re going to make…in pay-per-view points…Back then they’d give you incentives, think it was like quarterly. Whoever had the most traffic in their thing. First person would get $25,000. It would go like $12,000 then $5,000, maybe $1,000.
Demetrious Johnson via the “Mighty” Podcast
From 2009 to 2011, the UFC held Fighter Summits. Even before the UFC absorbed the WEC, both entities were under the Zuffa LLC umbrella, allowing WEC’s Demetrious Johnson to attend. By 2011, Brock Lesnar had gone back to the WWE, and the likes of Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey had yet to enter the main event picture. As such, the UFC looked for various ways to increase their fanbase through social media.
Chael Sonnen was a recent guest on the Mighty Podcast. His rivalry with Anderson Silva remained a catalyst for the UFC to stay relevant even after losing Brock Lesnar. Sonnen’s rivalry with Silva is often dubbed as one of the greatest rivalries in MMA history. Demetrious Johnson also noted the case of Cain Velasquez and how the promotion pulled for his imminent rise as a catalyst. Despite having his troubles with White, any tactic that substantiates a check without a punch to the face is good for ‘Mighty Mouse.’
Demetrious Johnson has long had a chip on his shoulder with how the UFC treated his title reign. Johnson has talked multiple times about the compensation he received from the UFC. The flyweight division did not gather much interest from the mainstream audience. As such, the UFC did not pay Johnson much money as he had the lowest-selling PPV at that time.
Push comes to shove, Demetrious Johnson likes the betterment strategies of Dana White (Source: bleacherreport.com/ufc.br.com/IMAGO)Johnson remembers how the UFC targeted to enter various markets across the world with a particular emphasis. ‘Mighty Mouse’ recently gave the example of former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez to indicate the business practices of the UFC.
I’ll never forget at the UFC Fighter Summit they pulled a picture of Cain Velasquez and were like, ‘You see this man? This man is Mexican-American…We are trying to break into the Mexican market…so we want this man to do very, very well. You need to follow this man’s footsteps and try to get your community behind you. That way, it brings more eyeballs to the sport…
Demetrious Johnson via the “Mighty” Podcast
In the midst of the Summit years, Cain Velasquez had also just become a champion. The new heavyweight titleholder was a prime example of what UFC wanted to push others to. White pushed for a similar target segment of fighters to aspire to be like Velasquez.
After building the $13 million Performance Institute in Shanghai, White’s efforts on Zhang Weili to push to be a champ caught attention. It wasn’t a segment or grind bias; White wanted other similar WMMA prospects in the area to get inspiration from the native. Velasquez was similar. Ultimately, Johnson never looked down on the experiment.
