A clip from my recent exclusive interview for MixedMartialArts with Bellator bantamweight champion Juan Archuleta. As he talks his frustration of being a champ and headliner in a couple of weeks, but not being the highest paid fighter on the card. (See Romero, Yoel and Johnson, Anthony). What are your thoughts? Is his frustration fair, and should champions be making a million a fight in MMA?
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Can understand his frustrations but it’s legit, people will be tuning in to see Rumble vs Romero. He should be appreciative of the eyes that will bring that likely wouldn’t have tuned in to see him otherwise. Good opportunity to put on a great performance and gain some fans
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Super fair point and true.
Archuleta said… if you are champion of a sport you deserve to make a million dollars a fight.
I’m not sure anyone thinks a Bellator champ is the champ of a sport.
He does not even understand why he is headlining and Romero and Rumble are on the undercard. Archuleta is headlining because its tradition to have champs headline, he is not the headliner because he will create the ratings, its Romero and Rumble that will do that and that is why they are paid more than him.
Then he says, I’m not a promoter, my followings weak, well your the fucking promoter what do you want me to do?
Archuleta does not get it, Bellator promotes MMA and they provide a platform for fighters to promote themselves in conjunction with the company.
Then he says… like Conor McGregor… they gave him the money to promote and then he went out there and got in peoples faces and promoted the fight. He has it backwards.
Conor arrived to the UFC with a huge following already and he brought his styIe and charisma with him. He promoted himself in conjunction with the UFC. A huge market was already behind him. What market is behind Archuleta?
Bellator is a sport now? MMA has the structure of a sport AT TIMES but it is prizefighting.
I support fighters when they hit the nail on the head but this guy is missing the mark and is just unhappy with his pay.
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He also said I thought our sport was making good enough money now… is it not true Bellator just stopped bleeding money a few years ago when they got the DAZN deal?
Also, to be fair, Look at all that Romero has done in his career. THough loosing the 3 title fights, he still made it to those fights. And got a SIlver medal in the olympics. Not to mention he can be an explosive fighter.
Juan is good, fight for the finish and make the best of your chance on a big card. THats how you get more money. Not by whining. Win and win big little guy, then youll make more. Good luck.
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I agree that’s a very mislead viewpoint, to think Bellator has to do all the marketing for him and he just fight. Guys like Chael and Conor wrote the book on it for guys to follow, good self-promotion opens up so many more opportunities and can help create stardom if you can win fights to back it up. Need charisma with effort to win over multitudes of fans and get them to open their wallets. It’s much harder for fighters with no personalities to become draws
