Melendez Not With UFC?

Apparently negotiations between the UFC and Gilbert Melendez have stalled. Dana even said he should field offers from other promotions. Wow.......I just.....How did this happen?

explain to me in detail how it is that you think he lost against ben henderson

Well I remember having it scored for Bendo but considering how long ago it was it's fairly unreasonable to request me to go into detail about why. Regardless of opinions on the fight though it still went down as a loss which makes Gil have exactly zero legitimate top ten wins. Before coming to the UFC he beat Aoki who sucks, Kawajiri who sucks and won two gift decisions over Thomson. Those were the 3 fighters that Gil got his hype for beating all of which had absolutely no business being ranked  anywhere near the top ten.
He then came to the UFC lost to Bendo (controversially but that's irrelevant) and beat Diego Sanchez.
So to sum it all up he has wins over a bunch of guys not in the top ten, a win over one guy who wasn't in the top ten at the time but is now and a loss to the champion. He still hasn't beaten a fighter in the top ten and for him to be making the money he did is ridiculous.

Well, at least now we all know why the negotiations for Melendez vs. Nurmagomedov fell through.  They couldn't settle on the money amount for Gilbert.  Gilbert wasn't afraied of Khabib.  He just didn't want to take a helfty pay cut.

Hell, they could pay Melendez the $175K per fight because they're saving at least that much on Renan Barao and John Dotson.  So very many of amazing fighters under contract are vastly underpaid.  Just note.

Dominick Cruz - $20K per fight
Renan Barao - $11K per fight
John Dotson - $15K per fight

But somewhere, sometime, reality must come to salaries in the UFC.  For Melendez to make $175K per fight and Faber and Henderson to make $100K is just wrong.  And weird.  To hide behind contracts is unbecoming an organization that loves to beat its chest like a lowland gorilla silverback.  

If you're gonna talk the talk, then be ready to walk the walk, and not get by on the cheap, just because the fighters are terrified of their job security and they don't have a labor union yet to fight for their legitimate rights.

he beat ben henderson, and then he beat Diego Sanchez. Those are both top ten lightweights

No, he lost to Ben and in no world if Sanchez a top ten LW, as a matter of fact his only win at LW since 2009 is against Gomi.

Some members have accused me of being obsessively negative towards Dana White and the UFC.  And while I do from time to time throw some logs on that fire, I can see a lot of good in Dana White.

1. The UFC ran in deep, deep debt, in the many millions from 2001 to 2005.  They never gave up, never walked away.  That showed deep commitment to the sport of MMA.  I give them HUGE credit for that.

2. Dana White is like an inexhaustible, indefatigable man of energy.  He has done for the UFC much, much more good than his screw-ups.  I have not lost sight of that.

3. The UFC and Dana White, never lose sight of the need to perform for Fox TV.  And in that regard, they are terrified, and rightly so.  Their PPV number have really, really sucked for a very long time.  Their Fox TV viewers numbers are sucking all year.  They now have a huge number of their top stars either injured, on the shelf, or unable to fight right now.

4. So, they are being reminded all the time that they can crash and burn and return to debt as fast as they rose out of it.  

So, I do not blame them for trying to keep their expenses in line and fighter salaries moderate.

The UFC is nowhere near the major sports in terms of revenue.  The UFC is a not a major player on the US sports scene.  They just aren't.  They are a small organization in terms of revenue and can hit the skids at any time.

And in fact, they are hitting the skids.  The goal is to so impress Fox TV, so that the UFC can retire their PPV model and consolidate all their great fights for Fox TV.  

The PPV business model is killing them.  It's currently a necessary evil, but its not what they want.  
Everytime they show a PPV, only 300,000 to 700,000 normally see the events live.  Instead of the 10 million that they hope for on Fox TV.  

If they could show all their events on Fox TV, their cards would be so incredibly loaded, that that would grow the fanbase like nothing else possible.

So, they are running scared, desperately trying to grow the Fox TV fanbase, and hope that those new fans will buy their PPV events.  But with so many stars presently hurt and out of action, they are scrambling to put cards together that lure the fans into buying.  But the fans have learned to watch illegally or gather for UFC parties or go to bars and thus, the PPV events are flopping.  

So, I don't hate Dana or the Fertittas in any way, shape or form.  And a word of support for Dana White.  He was never trained to run a company, let alone one this big.  He's was given 10% of the company and was learning on the job from day one.  He's doing the best he can, but when you have that much power, all your mistakes are magnified and hurt people badly.  

I write this not defensively, but just for the record.  Because I think some members have misjudged my rants.

* Edited at 02.13.2014, 7:39 PM ET *

@buffalo ben Do not argue with bomar about hispanic or black fighters, he will never quit. His racial bias clouds his judgement. 

Aoki and Kawajiri suck, lol both were unanimous top 10 fighters when Gil beat them

And what did either of them do to deserve being ranked in the top ten?
And do you all just go by whatever MMA sites rankings are or?

Aoki wins prior to the Melendez fight included TKO over top prospect Hironaka, sub over Wisniewski who shortly after joined the UFC, win x2 over top fighter Kikuchi, sub over top fighter Jason Black who went on to the UFC 2 fights later, win over Sotiropoulos, sub x2 over top fighter Hansen, win over top fighter JZ Cavalcante, win over top fighter Uno, sub over top fighter Alvarez, win over top fighter Shaolin Ribeiro. His only losses in that stretch were to Hansen, Mach, and Nakao in his 4th career fight, all top fighters.

Kawajiri wins prior to the 1st Melendez fight included KO over top fighter Nakayama, win over top fighter Yves Edwards, KO over top fighter Shaolin Ribeiro, win over top fighter Buscape, win over top fighter Hansen, win over solid Brennan. Then before the 2nd fight he beat top fighter Azeredo, top fighter Buscape, top fighter JZ Cavalcante, top fighter Yokota, top fighter Thomson.

But yeah completely undeserving of top 10 status

Having a lot of wins over decent opponents doesn't make you deserving of being a top ten fighter.
I don't expect everyone to understand that though. Just go back to pretending that Gil is the legitimate #2 LW just like Nick Diaz was the legitimate #2 WW.
Ignorance is bliss though.

Decent? Most of those guys were top 10 some even top 5. Yes ignorance is bliss.

@justyn. You can't say that Gil was "gifted" 2 decisions against Thomson, then turn around and say his "controversial" loss to Bendo is "irrelevant"

Though I agree Gil is overrated, he legit-mentally beat Thomson the first time he won and Thomson was/is a top 10 if not top 5.








Though I do think Thomson beat him the last match and got robbed.

* Edited at 02.13.2014, 11:46 PM ET *

Yes but amp, you fail to realize that logic goes out of the window with bomar.

Thomson is white, Benson is blasian and Gil is hispanic, therefore Thomson>Benson>Melendez.

Gils skin is whiter than Josh's and they're both perdomin Caucasian. Just saying yo.

skin tone gives you special powers

It's easy for white folks to say skin tone doesn't matter.  They aren't the ones being crapped on in various, subtle ways.  That's like rich folks saying money doesn't matter.  And it doesn't when you don't have to worry about it.

* Edited at 02.14.2014, 2:36 AM ET *

Anik you would be the only person ignorant enough to play the 'racist" card over the internet

And Amp those were gift decisions, I didn't say they mattered though. I simply pointed out that they were gift decisions.