Well, this isn’t going to go over well with Jake Paul.
It probably won’t go over well with any proponents for better MMA fighter pay, for that matter. But this is the combat sports world we live in.
UFC president Dana White apparently is the “uncle” you want on your good side, and at your birthday party. In a video Kyle Forgeard of Nelk Brothers fame posted to his Twitter account Monday, he opens a wrapped box while White is seated next to him.
Uncle @danawhite just gave me $250,000 for my birthday.. pic.twitter.com/noH34JF8zY
— KYLE (@KyleForgeard) July 12, 2022
Inside the box? According to Forgeard, it’s a cool quarter-mill – as in $250,000 wrapped in a plastic bag.
There are plenty of comments about White’s generosity and “legend” status. But suffice it to say, there also are quite a few about what the vast majority of UFC fighters get paid – and it sure isn’t $250,000 a fight for most of them.
Louis Smolka left the UFC after a second straight loss two months ago, and he’ll be testing the free agency market. So he wasn’t shy about wondering: “When we starting the union bois”?
When we starting the union bois https://t.co/gqZkYAPOCe
— Louis Smolka (@LouisSmolkaMMA) July 12, 2022
YouTube star and boxer Paul has been perhaps the biggest advocate for better UFC fighter pay and has been an outspoken White critic. And while he hasn’t commented publicly about the video yet, it almost certainly will be more fuel for his fire.
Forgeard is one of the founders of the Nelk Boys, whose YouTube channel consisting largely of prank videos has racked up more than 1 billion views. White has a close relationship with the Nelk Boys team, and its members frequently can be seen at UFC events.
This past December, the Nelk Boys gifted White a Maybach van wrapped in the logo for Howler Head, one of the UFC’s biggest sponsors.
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