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Canadian fighter Tanner Boser is entering his 31st professional MMA bout on August 5, and it also marks his 10th bout with the UFC. Unfortunately, the veteran is in a situation similar to most of his peers — and even top UFC contenders — where he has to balance another job outside of fighting for the world’s biggest fight promotion.
Injury left UFC fighter broke
Boser says he ended up “broke” after he had one year and three months in between UFC fights.
“All I do is I wake up, I eat, I go to training. I eat, usually I have another training, I teach a class, have another training, then I come home, I eat, then I go to bed. I don’t have free time,” Boser told James Lynch.
“Weekend nights I also work,” Boser revealed. “I’m a bouncer. I (only) quit during covid when the bars were closed. I went back when I got injured and I had to pull out of the original bout with Nascimento. Once I was able to work after I got that injury, I had to go back to work because I hadn’t fought in a year and a half or something like that and I was broke. I stayed since then.”
Boser goes off on The Rock’s shoes, other UFC sponsors
Ahead of the final fight of his UFC contract, Boser didn’t hold back on his thoughts on UFC sponsors, particularly those he is required to wear and promote during his fights.
“I guess for sponsors, I have Venum, who actually gives me money. And not every f—k face company that puts their logo all over my shit that I don’t gain a single penny from. Like Crypto.com and all those other ones can go eat a dick, and The Rock’s shoes can go f—k themselves too. So thank you to Venum for actually paying me to wear their shit.”
It’s worth noting that Boser didn’t unleash any of that vitriol towards the UFC, and was largely respectful to the company. The 31-year-old UFC fighter, who mostly competed as a heavyweight in his career, will compete in his second light heavyweight bout on August 5 when he faces Aleksa Camur.
That frustration should be directed to UFC, not the sponsors
Seeing that many UFC fighters struggle getting sponsors these days, Boser’s frustration is understandable, but it is misdirected.
The promotion instilling uniforms and banning outside sponsors during events has led to a previously lucrative sponsorship market to dry up for fighters, and companies now pay UFC directly instead.
This is the same for Venum, who pays the UFC to be their exclusive outfitting partner. It’s then the promotion who pays UFC fighters a very small cut of that payment. When additional sponsors like Crypto.com or The Rock’s shoes come in and pay UFC a large amount of money, it is also the UFC’s decision to not pay fighters extra for it.
UFC received hundreds and hundreds of millions more after the Venum deal, but they decided to just fold it all under the same “outfitting policy,” and give the same pay for fighters. Much like there was heavy uproar against Underarmour and The Rock after their shoe deal was announced, it was also a tad misdirected as the amount of money going to the fighters is ultimately decided by the UFC.
As recent financial figures show, the promotion still seems more concerned about making billions than improving conditions for their athletes, as they’re estimated to give just 13% of the revenue to the UFC fighters.
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