Jake Collier Suggests Monthly Incentive for Fighters: 'It Can Be Rough'

Ahead of his upcoming clash at UFC on ESPN 32, Jake Collier looks at the fighters’ pay situation. The former Resurrection Fighting Alliance middleweight champion will soon lock horns with Chase Sherman in the co-headliner of “UFC Vegas 46” after a series of last-minute changes reshaped the card’s lineup. It was only the second time “The Prototype” had the chance to focus completely on mixed martial arts in his training camp after leaving his full-time job in welding in 2021. While talking with Sherdog, Collier said that a monthly stipend from the UFC would help fighters direct their energies to training, without having to worry so much about bills as to be forced to take a second job.

“A lot of guys are complaining about fighters' pay,” he said. “Do we all want more money? Absolutely, we want more money. I don’t know if there was some monthly incentive or something. Every month that you’re off not fighting for a fight, maybe you get so much of a check every month or something. It’s rough, and then especially if you look at the fighters just now getting stuck in the UFC, I think their contracts are probably like [$12,000 to show] and [$12,000 to win]. After you pay gym fees, eating healthy, driving to the gym, paying your manager, paying this, and then paying taxes it’s like, ‘Yeah, I just made like 10 grand and I just trained three months of my life to make that.’ It can be rough, man.”

Collier also talked about the stinging split-decision defeat he suffered against Carlos Felipe in his last appearance and shared his thoughts on his next opponent, among other things.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:41) Switching things up in his training camp
(02:28) Whether he thinks about moving back down a division
(04:25) Why he doesn’t give many interviews
(05:17) Doing MMA as a full-time job
(08:47) His thoughts on fighter pay
(10:07) His loss to Felipe
(12:00) Facing Sherman
(13:20) Picking Giga Chikadze - Calvin Kattar
(13:55) Picking Francis Ngannou - Ciryl Gane
(14:47) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.