Ronda Rousey says TKO no longer has the priority to put up the best fights

Appearing on The Jim Rome Show, Ronda Rousey criticized TKO and UFC for no longer having the priority of putting up the best fights where priority now is spend as little money as possible.

Talking about her upcoming fight against Gina Carano on Netflix, promoted by MVP, Rousey said that they did take the fight to Dana White first and he did give her a deal which would have made her more money than anyone in history.

“I went to Dana White and said, ‘Dude…you always say that I’m the best fighter you ever worked with. Like, reward me for it. Don’t punish me for being easy to work with. Give me the best deal you ever gave anybody,” Rousey said. “He came back and he literally brought me a deal where I would make more per pay-per-view buy than anybody in history!”

But with no PPV model and now just streaming, the way fighters are paid has changed and Rousey said that they did not want to set a precedent of giving her the guaranteed money because once she’s paid for that, then they have to do it for the rest as well.

“It’s in their best interest actually not to put on the best fights possible, but to spend as little as money as possible so that they can keep it,” Rousey continued. “It no longer made sense for for me to go over there because they didn’t want to pay us the money that we deserve because then for the rest of the the time of the deal, they’re going to have to pay everybody else more. And so then I decided to look elsewhere.”

In the post UFC Fight Night 267 press conference, UFC President Dana White was asked about it and quizzed if he’s disappointed that they’re not promoting but happy that Ronda is getting back into the sport.

“Yeah, her and I have been talking about this since last year and, hm, yeah…it just didn’t work out,” White said. “I’m happy…listen, me and Gina are in a really good place, we weren’t at one point and I’m happy for both of them.”