I’m not sure how many of you remember or even care about the whole issue with the Texas Board of Licensing not releasing the fighter salary information after UFC 69: Shootout was held in Houston, Texas.
After the event I had quite a few readers ask me for the fighter payouts from the event. I was very interested in seeing the numbers myself considering this was the first event Georges St. Pierre competed in after signing a new contract extension following his victory over Matt Hughes to win the welterweight title.
You may remember way back in April when I first posted the initial response from the Texas licensing board. Well, the state of Texas has finally made a ruling and it looks like we won’t be getting the payout numbers.
Here is part of the email I received:
This e-mail is in regard to your April 23, 2007 request to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for fighter salary payout information for UFC 69 held on April 7, 2007 in Houston, Texas. (A copy of your request is attached)
As you are aware, the Department requested a ruling from the Texas Attorney General as to whether the purse information contained on the Promoter-Contestant Contract (Contract) is confidential. On June 21, 2007 the Attorney General issued a ruling indicating that the Contract is protected by common-law privacy and must be withheld. A copy of the ruling is attached.
I’ve attached the official document below for any of you who are interested in seeing it. The full document was 4 pages long but I’ve only included the first 3. That last page included all the personal address information of every fighter who fought at UFC 69 since they were contacted about the salary inquiry. As much as I love all you guys, I don’t think I want to be responsible for releasing contact info of fighters like Diego Sanchez, Josh Koscheck, Matt Serra, Heath Herring, Roger Huerta and plenty of others.
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THIS IS SO MUCH ********… I WANNA SEE HOW MUCH GSP MADE…. ANYONE EVER KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO DENNIS
I was wondering where Dennis has been too. He use to make like 10 comments a day and now all of a sudden nothing. Wonder what is going on with him?
i know he lost his job,and ever since the iceman lost dennis got lost
10 Dennis was in the range of 20-30 a day. It is wierd not seeing him on here anymore. I didn’t know he lost his job that sucks. I was posting a lot more before we got really busy at work and with my freelance stuff so I know what it’s like. I was kinda curious to see what he had to say about Chuck’s defeat but it seems like he disappeared just before. I still read the daily news and visit the site daily just haven’t had the time to read all the posts and comment as much either. Damn bills
WELL EVERYONE… IM STILL HERE!!!!
It is so incredibly ignorant that the Texas commission refuses to give out the fighters’ salaries, citing privacy, but they included every single one of the fighters’ home addresses in their ruling. That makes a lot of sense…
Also, the legal basis in the ruling is flimsy at best, given the policy of almost every legitimate athletic commission in the country. If someone had the money to sue the commission for the records, they would likely win in the end.
It’s also amusing that the ruling says, “We have also received comments from Zuffa, LLC, d/b/a/ Ultimate Fighting Championship (â€Zuffaâ€),†but later says, “As our ruling is dispositive, we need not address Zuffa’s arguments.â€
(feel free to change the curse words in the next paragraph to “f—ing” if you’d like, I don’t know what your policy is)
I wonder what that legal document from Zuffa to the appeals board looked like. Somehow I doubt it said “Don’t ******* ask me about ******* numbers! The fighters are making great ******* money! There’s not a single fighter who has complained about their ******* salary! And they don’t even ******* want to know what the **** the other fighters are making! You should worry about how much ******* money you’re making and mind your own ******* business!†although if it did say that, it would be an overwhelmingly convincing argument.