The UFC underpaying its fighters has been a long-standing discussion among fans and pundits. Amid many proposed solutions, many believe that if the promotion’s top superstars, like Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria, actually support the fighters through a union, they could bring a major change to the entire scenario. But would they speak out against the UFC? A former interim champ believes they won’t. Why?

According to Colby Covington, who defeated Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 225 to win the interim welterweight championship, current-day superstars like Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev won’t speak out against the promotion alongside other fighters because they are paid really well.

“Yeah, it would,” Covington told N3ON in a stream. “But the thing is, those guys who make the biggest influence, they have the biggest platforms like Ilia, like Makhachev, like Khabib, those guys are getting paid so well that they are never going to speak out against the UFC. They are getting paid well… those guys are making like $5 million a fight,” he added.

Well, ‘Chaos’ isn’t entirely wrong, assuming that the UFC is paying fighters like Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria as the highest-paid athletes in the promotion. For his last fight against Charles Oliveira, Topuria earned somewhere around $3.4 million. And for becoming the 11th two-division champion, Makhachev also earned over $3 million.

However, it’s worth noting that, as per the Dagestani champion, he has often prioritized legacy over money, so he hasn’t been very vocal about fighter pay. On the other hand, the Georgian-Spanish champion has revealed some interesting insights.

In a conversation on the PBD podcast, it was revealed that ‘El Matador’s UFC career earnings up to the Max Holloway fight roughly totaled around $3.5 million. Honestly, that’s not a bad number considering Topuria’s rise in such a short time. But the current lightweight champion’s response to the stats presented was surprising, as he stated that fighting in the UFC is just part of his long-term retirement plans.

“It’s not only fight-wise, it’s also business-wise,” Topuria said on the PBD podcast. “That’s why I try to develop all the time my skills, because at some point I’m gonna retire, and I’m gonna make a living from something else.”

To be fair, Topuria didn’t directly reveal that he is underpaid in the UFC. But it does raise the question: why is a champion in his prime, at just 28 years old, already thinking about earning more in retirement? We don’t know. But, whatever Topuria’s earning ambitions might be, it has to be acknowledged that the Georgian-Spanish star is one of the higher-paid athletes in the UFC.

When it comes to the idea of forming a union, fighters like Georges St-Pierre, Cain Velasquez, TJ Dillashaw, and Donald Cerrone attempted to create one in 2016 to collectively voice fighter issues to the UFC. However, within just a couple of months, the effort fell apart, and fighters went back to negotiating with the UFC on an individual basis.

Now, that could be one of the reasons why Topuria and Makhachev aren’t speaking up about their displeasure in the form of a union amid the fighter pay debate. However, it seems the UFC may have also tried to lowball Ilia Topuria ahead of the UFC White House card.

Ilia Topuria’s manager reveals they canceled Islam Makhachev fight after UFC’s offer

Since Ilia Topuria jumped into the lightweight division, a superfight against Islam Makhachev has remained on fans’ bingo cards. But every time, the fight faces some level of constraint that prevents it from happening. Last year, they were rumored to clash during International Fight Week, which fizzled out after the Dagestani champion moved to welterweight.

Fans remained thirsty for a year until the rumors began once again for the UFC White House card, but it seems the promotion fumbled once more. According to Topuria’s manager, the promotion offered them very low money to fight Islam Makhachev, which they rejected, eventually accepting a fight against Justin Gaethje instead.

“It didn’t go anywhere after a while,” Topuria’s manager, Malki Kawa, said on the Anik and Florian podcast. “So then Wednesday I got asked, ‘Would you guys want to do this or that,’ and we said absolutely. They gave us a number, and we said absolutely not.

Then we didn’t hear anything after that. So to me, there was no fight going on as of Wednesday afternoon… The money that was offered was small in comparison to what we had already said we wanted to fight those guys from before,” he added.

So, as per Topuria’s manager’s words, the UFC couldn’t make one of the biggest fights of the present era simply because they didn’t meet ‘El Matador’s’ financial expectations. In that case, it won’t be a stretch to think that the fighters’ pay issue is also at the top, not just those at the bottom.

That said, what do you think about Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev actually leading a union in the UFC? How would it change the pay landscape? Let us know in the comments section below.