The UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement remains one of the most hotly debated topics when it comes to fighter pay. Following a lengthy legal struggle, the company agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to former fighters, and reports later revealed that Anderson Silva earned the greatest settlement of anyone involved, totaling more than $10 million.

Because of that, many assumed ‘The Spider’ must have been deeply involved in the case from the start. However, Silva recently claimed that the situation actually caught him by surprise and that the first time he realized how serious the case was came during a training session with Jon Jones, not in a meeting with lawyers or managers.

“You know, it’s so interesting because when people talk about that,” Anderson Silva told Ariel Helwani. “One time I trained with Jon Jones, and I’m with Devin, training, shooting techniques. And Jon Jones tell me about that.

I say, bro, I don’t know. I think I go talk to Dana about that. And Jon Jones talked to me and say, That’s the truth.”

The former UFC middleweight champion went on to claim that he never felt compelled to sue the UFC and that he initially believed that speaking directly with Dana White would provide the best understanding of the problem.

“I try to call Dana for check it out,” he added. “So what’s going on? I don’t know. I don’t put UFC and I don’t sue the UFC and this and that.

And when I start talk with my lawyer, my lawyer explain to me the whole thing. And that’s all. I say, Okay, all right, it’s done.”

The lawsuit covered fighters who competed between 2010 and 2017 with claims that the promotion limited athletes’ opportunity to negotiate elsewhere and maintained pay below what it should have been. The final settlement resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being given to over a thousand fighters, with compensation ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than $10 million, depending on their activity during that time.

When Helwani joked that the settlement sounded like free money, Anderson Silva immediately disagreed.

“It’s not free money. I pay tax, but remember, it’s not free money,” Silva said. “I think this money is for money that UFC need to pay for everybody.

And for me, it’s nothing free because I suffering a lot to… get this money come to my account.”

The debate over fighter pay has resurfaced again, with numerous fighters asking how much the promotion should be paying compared to the revenue it generates. Silva, however, made it clear that he never looked at the lawsuit as something personal against the UFC.

For him, it was a legal scenario that evolved over time, something Jon Jones warned him about before he understood it himself. However, the same cannot be said about Ronda Rousey, who brought back the issue to the spotlight after she slammed the UFC for making its fighters resort to OnlyF—.

Ronda Rousey slams the Dana White-led promotion’s low pay

Ronda Rousey stirred the fighter pay pot at a press conference last week, long before Anderson Silva revealed his side of the settlement, and her comments were far more direct about the sport’s current status. Instead of discussing the past, ‘Rowdy’ questioned how fighters are paid now, despite the promotion’s growing revenue.

Speaking ahead of her fight against Gina Carano, Rousey stated that the UFC is no longer the greatest place for fighters to earn a livelihood, claiming that many athletes are forced to look for money off the cage.

“It used to be that the UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly. Now, it’s one of the worst places to go,” Rousey said. “It’s why so many of their top athletes are going to find pay elsewhere.

It’s why their champions, like Valentina Shevchenko, are selling pictures of their ti—– on OnlyF—.”

She said that the problem extends beyond a few big names and impacts fighters across the roster, particularly those lower on the card.

“They are bleeding talent because of their short-term greed,” she added. “They are thinking about the next quarter. They are thinking about the shareholders.

They are not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the sport.”

According to Ronda Rousey, the issue is not simply one case or one payout, but how the business of the sport is being run today. And honestly, comments like hers are precisely why the discussion over fighter pay hasn’t faded yet and why every new payout or contract ends up reopening the same argument again.