Duffee: Not Quite on the Money
Jake Rossen Sep 9, 2010
Todd
Duffee embodies all of the requirements for any promising up
and comer: He was a striker with an impressively quick knockout
debut, a good promotional angle (“This was just an appetizer, I’m
still hungry,”) and a low body fat percentage. Send in the creatine
endorsements.
Tuesday, Duffee was released from the UFC. While his loss to Mike Russow didn’t do his reputation many favors, it was a fight he was dominating up until the unfortunate end. He’s still got plenty of room to grow. So why ditch him?
SI’s Josh Gross speculated that Duffee had antagonized Dana White
by complaining publicly of low pay and at one point -- facetiously?
-- seeing if anyone had any part-time job leads for him. This was
fart-in-church stuff as far as White’s business is concerned: He
makes sure his athletes are seen in promotional material driving
expensive cars and living it up. Duffee trolling for work as a
short-order cook or bricklayer doesn’t fit the picture.
So was that some kind of passive-aggressive request for a raise? Duffee made a disclosed $8,000 in the loss to Russow, but the reality is that the commission payroll figures are next to useless when figuring out how much a fighter earns. White hands out bonuses at his discretion, sponsorship dollars can often exceed revealed salary and good results can mean dramatic shifts in compensation.
But, fine: Let’s assume Duffee was, by any standards, barely getting by. This is combat sports. The vast majority of athletes who enter won’t make anything close to a living -- same as actors, novelists and restaurant owners. It’s as brutal a business financially as it physically. The guys making appreciable sums are draws or guys getting results. (If you can perform both functions, congrats: Your kids might attend a decent college.) Duffee is 1-1 in the UFC. Whatever reward he was expecting isn’t one that’s deserved.
In addition to being a lousy bargaining chip, that .500 status that makes him expendable. If Duffee heads to another promotion, there’s no worst case scenario. If he destroys everyone, then White can outbid anyone for his services. If he bombs, he bombs. There’s no incentive not to make an example out of him.
Duffee will be fine. There’s a crop of mid-major promotions starving for heavyweights. And he appears to have a role in the straight-to-DVD “Never Back Down 2,” which guarantees him some kind of notoriety, though probably not the kind he’s expecting.
Tuesday, Duffee was released from the UFC. While his loss to Mike Russow didn’t do his reputation many favors, it was a fight he was dominating up until the unfortunate end. He’s still got plenty of room to grow. So why ditch him?
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So was that some kind of passive-aggressive request for a raise? Duffee made a disclosed $8,000 in the loss to Russow, but the reality is that the commission payroll figures are next to useless when figuring out how much a fighter earns. White hands out bonuses at his discretion, sponsorship dollars can often exceed revealed salary and good results can mean dramatic shifts in compensation.
But, fine: Let’s assume Duffee was, by any standards, barely getting by. This is combat sports. The vast majority of athletes who enter won’t make anything close to a living -- same as actors, novelists and restaurant owners. It’s as brutal a business financially as it physically. The guys making appreciable sums are draws or guys getting results. (If you can perform both functions, congrats: Your kids might attend a decent college.) Duffee is 1-1 in the UFC. Whatever reward he was expecting isn’t one that’s deserved.
In addition to being a lousy bargaining chip, that .500 status that makes him expendable. If Duffee heads to another promotion, there’s no worst case scenario. If he destroys everyone, then White can outbid anyone for his services. If he bombs, he bombs. There’s no incentive not to make an example out of him.
Duffee will be fine. There’s a crop of mid-major promotions starving for heavyweights. And he appears to have a role in the straight-to-DVD “Never Back Down 2,” which guarantees him some kind of notoriety, though probably not the kind he’s expecting.
