For quite some time, MMA Manifesto has created UFC Salary posts for cards where salaries haven’t been officially released, based on whatever data was most recently available for the fighters involved. In general there’s nothing wrong with this, it’s a little theoretical, but it’s also pretty clearly labeled at the start of each article that the numbers within are not official. Unfortunately, as word spreads that disclaimer often gets left behind. And, for Vinny Magalhaes, that’s been causing him some real problems down the road. He released the following statement via Twitter:
MMAManifesto sucks, they keep on reporting wrong #’s on fighters pay, and other websites report the same #’s out of laziness.
This might not seem to be a big deal, but as a fighter I can tell that this is a big deal.
To give an example, when I fought Phil Davis, MMA Manifesto reported that I had made $8k to show in that fight, when in fact I’ve made $22k (which was my second fight in a 6-figure contract)
Here is the issue, when I had to negotiate with other promotions after getting cut from the UFC these promotions wanted to pay me based on what I was making in the UFC, and the only thing that they could find online were the $8k reported by MMA Manifesto, so they ended up low balling me thinking that they were making me a nice offer, since they were offering me something close to what I was making in the UFC (according to MMA Manifesto, but nowhere close to the real numbers).I’m writing this because I just saw that they have reported Barão’s pay for UFC 169, and they reported that he made 22k, same numbers that he made in February of 2012 before he became a champion, also the last time that he has fought in a state where the payouts are released to the public.
Anyways, fans, bloggers, promoters and real journalists, don’t believe anything that comes from that website, MMA Manifesto is a shitty website run by lazy people.
It’s easy to see how such errors could make a fighter’s job that much more difficult when it comes to negotiating from a position of strength against potential employers. Hopefully Vinny kept a few pay stubs around to settle his own disputes, but it’s certainly information that bears considering when salary numbers aren’t coming directly from the commission.
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