UFC manager Ali Abdelaziz reveals a ‘crazy’ story of how he got Justin Gaethje an extra $150,000 after the UFC failed to match his original negotiation offer.
Dominance MMA founder Ali Abdelaziz is the manager to some of the biggest stars in the UFC and whilst he’s started to step away from influencing MMA social media in recent years, he recently revealed how was able to secure Justin Gaethje an impressive amount of extra money during the pandemic.
Ali Abdelaziz is a ‘Twitter blackbelt’ when it comes to promotion
Whilst Abdelaziz remains one of the most important individuals working primarily behind the scenes in the MMA space, that doesn’t mean the veteran manager hasn’t earned himself a reputation for ‘stirring the pot.’
Specifically, Abdelaziz is known to handle the social media accounts of some of his clients, or at least is the one hitting ‘send’ to some of the more incendiary posts from typically mild-mannered competitors.
When asked by Gilbert Burns on the Show Me the Money podcast, how many fighters socials he has access to, Abdelaziz laughed as he teased: “If I told you, I’d have to kill you – listen everybody needs help every once in a while.”
Whilst some fans might perceive this situation to be Ali Abdelaziz trying to instigate conflict between his clients and potential opponents, this situation has historically been down to English being a second language for many of his athletes.
“Listen, at the end of the day, sometimes you have to help guys, sometimes you have to tell them what to say and sometimes type it out for them a little bit too. I’m a Twitter blackbelt…[But] now that everybody is speaking English, and everybody’s grown – I [only] advise [and] maneuver.”
Ali Abdelaziz shares ‘crazy’ story of getting Gaethje an extra $150,000
Also on the latest episode of the Show Me the Money podcast, Abdelaziz shared a wild story about how he was able to secure a significantly larger purse for Justin Gaethje in his UFC 249 main event clash with Tony Ferguson:
“During Covid, Justin Gaethje was supposed to fight Tony Ferguson right, and I thought Justin deserved $500,000 dollars, they said, ‘No we’ll give him $350,000’ and I was like ‘Hey you cheap mother******, you got so cheap!”
Abdelaziz said that he got “so mad” with the UFC for offering Gaethje $350,000 that he went home and took matters into his own hands, literally, by placing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in a box and delivering it directly to the Performance Institute in Las Vegas.
“I always have cash with me, and I went to my house, I got $150,000 in a box and it was COVID so everything was closed and I dropped it at the front desk at the UFC security and I told the security [guard] to give this box to Hunter and Dana.”
Whilst the expression on said security guard would have been a sight to behold, having given a life-changing amount of money dropped in front of him, the veteran manager explained that only a few minutes after the delivery, Hunter Campbell called him directly:
“He went upstairs to give the box to Hunter and Dana, Hunter calls me saying ‘You’re f**** crazy, come and get your money! I said no and they chased me for almost 10 days to get this money and they paid Justin $500,000.”
Whilst any story from Abdelaziz should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt, he did note that “this is 100% a true story” with Gilbert Burns seemingly in agreement on the recollection.