Midnight Mania: Paul Reverses Nelk Boys Trap, Reveals Massive Undercard Fight Purses

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Just a week or so after a failed assassination attempt on Jake Paul’s boxing life, “The Problem Child” has avoided another major trap at the hands of his enemies.

During a recent appearance on the Full Send Podcast, Paul was forced to answer some difficult questions from the Nelk Boys about fighter pay. It felt like a bit of a setup: the Nelk Boys are famously (and controversially) buddy-buddy with UFC CEO Dana White, who Paul has been feuding with since the inception of his combat sports career. First, Paul was asked about the fight purses on his own boxing undercards and how those match ups are booked.

He explained, “It’s pretty difficult. We have so many requests, so many fights. Mostly, we want to help young prospects, we want big names, then we want crossover fights like Uriah Hall vs. [Julio Cesar Chavez Jr] … We pay people the most they’ve ever gotten paid pretty much every card. It depends who or what their name is, but it could range anywhere from 40,000 to 1.5 million.”

The Nelk Boys response was to question why there wasn’t an opportunity for bonus pay, like the UFC fighter bonuses. Paul’s response was that he doesn’t have the funds of UFC and Dana White, and pointed out his issue with the multi-billion dollar company’s percentage of revenue that goes to the athletes.

He continued, “We’re not a $6 billion company. That’s my gripe with it is the UFC is making billions and billions of dollars, but still only paying the fighters 12% of the income.”

The debate shifted a bit from there, as Nelk Boys weighed the value of the UFC’s more consistent opportunity against the larger dollar figure. Paul mentioned that he also signs athletes to multi-fight contracts and pointed to Amanda Serrano as an example, but he’s certainly employing fewer athletes for fewer fights than the world’s biggest MMA promotion.

Insomnia

This accurate description of Deiveson Figueiredo made me chuckle.

I expect Kyler Phillips rise to continue with this match up.

Guram Kutateladze has trouble stringing UFC wins together, but the guy consistently does cool things inside the Octagon. It’s easy to be a fan!

Marvin Vettori vs. Shara Magomedov has been discussed previously, and the Italian still wants the fight.

I like this post-UFC Abu Dhabi fan booking quite a bit. The two biggest Lightweights collide!

Payton Talbott has now hung out with Tony Hawke and Frank Ocean — rocket ship to stardom confirmed?

A nice breakdown of Umar Nurmagomedov’s kickboxing success against Cory Sandhagen:

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Heel to the chin! Can a spin kick land any cleaner?

Same side head kick claims another victim, but the celebration might be the most notable part of this win.

This brutally one-sided fight makes for a rather good couple summer for the Rosas brothers!

Random Land

Unique bridges.

Midnight Music: Folk rock, 1974

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.