If Justin Gaethje vs. Edson Barboza turns out to be the war that is widely expected it to be at UFC Philadelphia, Justin Gaethje believes he deserves to be paid extra for every additional round of violence. (scrum transcription via MMA Junkie)
“If I’m getting paid something for three rounds, it’s easy to do the math,” Gaethje said in a UFC Philadelphia media scrum. “If I’m getting paid $100,000 (to show) and $100,000 (to win), that’s like $33,000 a round if I lose, $66,000 a round if I win. So I’d like to get paid ($132,000) more to fight for two extra rounds.”
Justin Gaethje has every intention of finishing Edson Barboza at UFC Philadelphia and even pointed out in the scrum that Barboza’s “quit before,” but he also is aware that if the fight does go the distance, his fighting style will ensure that the fight will not look like your typical “championship rounds”:
“Not a lot of guys fight like me, so no, I’m not going to put them in the same category,” he said. “But if I do get seriously injured, it will be in the fourth or fifth round, whenever I’m extremely tired because of my output in the first two or three rounds.”
At the end of the day, Justin Gaethje is a fighter, not a businessman or manager, and with his highly-anticipated war with Edson Barboza being only two days away, Justin Gaethje cannot gear his thinking towards such matters:
“I’m here to fight,” he said. “I’m not worried about the business. You can’t worry about the business this close to a fight. There’s only a certain amount of things I can control leading into this fight, and I will not spend an ounce of energy thinking about the other things that I can’t.”
Do you agree with Justin Gaethje? Should Justin Gaethje get paid an extra $132,000 to fight the championship rounds of UFC Philadelphia and other fights going forward?
