Francis Ngannou has poured cold water on Jake Paul's idea of a fighters' union as the YouTube star ups the ante in his attempt to improve conditions for UFC stars.
Paul, who has a 5-0 record as a professional boxer and who has flirted with switching to mixed martial arts, has locked horns with UFC president Dana White in recent months. Paul has repeatedly demanded White pay his fighters more - and introduce benefits such as health care.
White has dismissed the social media upstart's calls but Paul has refused to back down. "The fighters can band together," he insisted in an episode of The Shop in which he appeared with Ngannou. "We can. My ultimate goal is to create a fighters’ union. It needs to be done. It seems impossible and maybe it will be but that’s how.
"People say, 'Jake, how are you going to create a fighters’ union? They’ll just shelf all the fighters in the fighters' union.' No, everyone comes together and we’re not fighting." But heavyweight champion Ngannou raised doubts over the viability of fighters banding together.
"They cannot come together," he said. "It’s very complicated. Because financially if somebody has to rely on you to pay his bills because you’re controlling his wallet, how much he gets, and you can do whatever you want, of course he cannot stand up against you. How are you going to feed those people? Because a lot of them after eight months, after eight weeks of training camp, after four months of not fighting, they’re broke."
Should UFC fighters form a union? L et us know in the comments section below
Paul's campaign appears to be filtering through to the UFC fighters, however, with lightweight contender Tony Ferguson hitting out at White this week. He branded his boss a "drug dealer" for refusing to let him compete in other sports during his lay-off from the cage.
He then called on White to provide his fighters with health insurance, saying: " I’d say let’s get some insurance for these fighters. Let’s raise the tier up. You know what I mean? When they did the Reebok [kit] deal, they had tiers, so how many fights you had inside the octagon.
"I’d say we do the same thing, man. We all have families, we all have to support our systems, and let’s do that s***, man. I don’t know, Dana’s not here, but [let's have] insurance.'
