As usual, those of us sitting alone at home watching UFC 160 with no one to discuss fights with but the dog can come join the Fightlinker chat – kicking off at 6:30 PM EST and going straight through til the end of the event. Check it out, it’s ultra swag boss #yolo

PPV Card, 10PM EST
Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Silva
Junior dos Santos vs Mark Hunt
James Te Huna vs Glover Teixeira
T.J. Grant vs Gray Maynard
Donald Cerrone vs K.J. Noons

FX Prelims, 8PM EST
Mike Pyle vs Rick Story
Dennis Bermudez vs Max Holloway
Colton Smith vs Robert Whittaker
Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Abel Trujillo

Facebook Prelims, 6:30PM EST
Nah-Shon Burrell vs Stephen Thompson
Brian Bowles vs George Roop
Estevan Payan vs Jeremy Stephens

(poster by the very talented Nixson Sysanga)

After endless opinions from everyone and their mother regarding Fallon Fox, MMA’s first transgendered fighter is finally stepping into the cage again. Fox will face off against Allanna Jones tonight on AXS (formerly HDNet). Oh the humanity?

Enjoy as Ronda Rousey talks boobs, bras, lube, and the douchebaggery of Bryan “Mr. Tate” Caraway.  Middle Easy is doing the Lord’s work here.

It’s turning into a Dana Sayin’ Stuff / Working Out day here at Fightlinker, so let’s just keep it rolling. Newly retired UFC fighter John Cholish has been on a bit of a media tour talking shit about the UFC’s payscale for new fighters and shockingly enough, Dana White doesn’t seem too impressed with his talking points:

“What’s scary is this guy wasn’t good enough to be in the UFC,” White said.  “I wonder if he’s good enough to be on Wall Street. I mean, this guy has to be the biggest moron I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s talking about taxes? Yes, Wall Street guy you have to pay taxes, so do I. When we go down to Brazil and do a fight I pay taxes in Brazil too, and Sweden, and in all these other countries and states. Every state that we go to takes taxes.”

White continued, “He signed a contract. He got the same opportunity that Georges St-Pierre, that Anderson Silva, that Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez and the list goes on and on. The unfortunate part of this business is some of you are good enough to be here and some of you are not. That’s life, Cholish.

“Unfortunately my friend, you weren’t good enough to be here. Hopefully you’re good enough to stick around on Wall Street, because if you don’t know what taxes are, I’ve got a feeling you’re not.”

According to the UFC president, “Fighter pay has been beaten to death. If you don’t want to be here, don’t sign a contract with us. I can tell you this, John Cholish was paid discretionary bonuses even when he lost. What do you want me to tell you? The guy is delusional, not too bright and what do you want me to say to that?”

There’s those secret discretionary bonuses brought up again. Back when Randy Couture went rogue and tried to break his contract, the UFC revealed that they often paid an assload of cash in ‘locker room bonuses’, basically throwing cash around to guys they felt performed well and deserved a little bump in pay. A little five figure bump in pay. The problem here being there’s no way to plan financially for a discretionary bonus you may or may not be getting depending on the whims of your often fickle bosses.

As for the tax thing, Cholish wasn’t expressing shock that he HAD to pay taxes, just that a quarter of your already meager payday going to taxes contributes to the overall negative financial outlook for a starting UFC fighter.

One thing I’m surprised Dana didn’t bring up was sponsorship money. Back in the day, whenever UFC pay came into question the first thing White would bring up was the oodles of sponsorship cash fighters were making on top of their UFC pay – money that would often triple or quadruple their salaries. Cholish never touched on that (or those discretionary bonuses either).

(pic by Jeff Cain for MMA Weekly)

After Vitor Belfort flattened Luke Rockhold with a spinning back kick, Kenny Florian immediately started talking about another title shot against Anderson Silva. ‘Yeah, but what about his TRT usage and getting licensed outside of Brazil?’ half the internet community asked. According to Dana White, no decision has been made regarding a Vitor title shot but the TRT issue wouldn’t affect the fight or the location:

“There’s no plans right now with Vitor.  He just fought so we’ll see what happens.  It would make sense for those two (Silva and Weidman) to fight and that’s not far away, and then those two fight or Vitor could fight again,” White said when speaking to the media on Thursday.  “He could fight either one of those guys.”
…
“That’s up to them.  They’ll have to do a hearing or however they want to do it,” White said about Belfort being approved by another commission.  “We’re not keeping Vitor out of fighting from anywhere.  We had Vitor fight in Brazil because Vitor sells out in Brazil.  It’s all a bunch of conspiracy, f—king crock of s—t.”

Knowing the NSAC, Belfort could probably walk into a hearing and charm them into giving him a TUE pretty easily. These are the same people after all that bent over backwards to try and let Alistair Overeem fight on the UFC’s big New Years Eve card in Vegas. A Silva vs Belfort fight in Vegas would fill the hotels and casinos to the tits with flush Brazilian fans eager to get drunk and spend cash.