Darren Till seems to have unveiled a shady tactic from Dana White and The UFC.
Darren Till was quite the popular fighter when he signed to the UFC in 2015. It wasn't just the trash talking that got the fans buzzing about the former UFC star, but he was also able to back up his skills inside of the octagon.
Naturally, being one of the more popular fighters on the roster means that sponsors wanted to be advertised by Till. But unfortunately, that couldn’t happen. UFC and Reebok made a deal in 2014 that saw fighters receive a guaranteed set amount of money from the deal.
The drawback?
Fighters couldn’t have any visible sponsors on fight night. On the surface, this sounded like a solid deal, but fighters complained that the Reebok dealing did more harm than good to their pockets. Till was one of those fighters who felt that he was screwed by the Reebok deal.
“I don’t like to slander Dana too much, he gets a lot of heat, but obviously I have to be a truthful guy as well.” Till started off on the MightyCast. “I always stand on business with what I believe in as well, but even when you’re in the UFC, it’s like, ‘We’re going to take away your sponsorship now. We’re going to put Venum in there or Reebok,’” Till said. “I was like, ‘What the f*cks going on now?’ So now the fighters aren’t even making money outside of it. It was actually quite cruel, some of it. It was, it was cruel.
“That sort of stuff, 10 plus 10, and then your fight’s set in stone, f*ck all that, that does not—For me now, I couldn’t be loving life more, I’ll be honest. I’ve just made a shit-ton of money.”
Luckily for Till, he doesn’t have to worry about that since he isn’t in the UFC anymore. He makes his own deals and doesn’t have to worry about anyone getting in the way.
“Oh, you want to be the A-side and take five and I take three mil?” Till said. “No problem. No problem at all. Go for it, be the A-side, you’re the best, you’re everything. I’m just going to do me, I’m just going to knuckle down, none of that ego shit.
“Next fight again, Jake Paul, you want 50 million, give me 10. … I don’t give a shit, take it, because I’m going to knock you clean out and I’m just going to keep going boom boom boom.”
The UFC and fighter pay has been a hot topic for years. Thus far, it hasn’t gone past words as UFC is still the biggest MMA promotion on the planet, so most guys are willing to take whatever pay that the company gives them in exchange for fighting within the UFC. It’s a complex topic that hopefully gets the full attention it deserves one day. Luckily for the UFC fighters, they ended their Reebok deal in 2021, so the current generation of stars don’t have to deal with the ridiculous restrictions that Till had to go through.