For most fighters, the actual hard work of their job comes well before fight week. Hours upon hours of training, dieting, game-planning, and conditioning all done with the eventual promise that there will be a few minutes of work at the end that actually pays the bills. When that payoff doesn’t come about, however? That’s when things start getting tricky.
In the case of longtime lightweight action fighter Jim Miller, ‘A-10’ made it all the way through fight camp, through fight week, and even through weigh-ins before finding out that his bout with Bobby Green wouldn’t be going ahead as planned. Shortly after hitting the lightweight limit on the scales, Green collapsed due to apparent kidney failure and air pockets in his lungs.
And while the medical emergency obviously leaves Green in a much more difficult place, it also left Miller facing his own problems. Namely, was he going to get paid for a bout he cut weight for? And how much? In a recent interview with Just Scrap Radio (transcript via BJPenn.com), Miller revealed that he did get something for his efforts, but it was only a fraction of what he would have made had both men made it to fight night.
“They gave me a percentage,” Miller responded when asked if the UFC paid him his fight purse for the cancelled bout. “A fraction. You waste a week out in Las Vegas basically stuck in your hotel room and it’s like I made a couple thousand dollars for it. It sucks.”
Miller noted that the cut was actually a comparatively easy one, all things considered. But for a fighter whose last reported payday was $208,000 ($104,000 to win/show), is it any wonder that walking out of fight week with just a few grand would feel like a serious downgrade.
The New Jersey native is currently on tap to face Gym-O talent Joe Solecki at UFC on ABC 2 this coming April 10th. The event takes place at the Apex facility in Las Vegas, NV and is expected to be headlined by a middleweight top contender’s bout between Darren Till and Marvin Vettori.
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