Todd Duffee And Sean O’Malley Slam Managers For Exploiting Fighters

In the MMA latest updates, Todd Duffee, the former UFC heavyweight, has spoken out against MMA managers looking to exploit fighters. 

Duffee made his debut for RIZIN as the fighter has not fought in over three years. His last fight was against Phil De Fries for the KSW heavyweight title as he suffered a first-round knockout defeat at UFC 155.

But now he has made his debut against Tsuyoshi Sudario at RIZIN 44. However, when it came to issues outside of the cage, that is where the fighter’s mind was presently focused. 

Duffee On Managers

“Promoters don’t necessarily want what fans want. That’s what I would say. It’s a dirty game in that aspect especially. There’s a bad MMA manager mafia that kind of controls the majority of these promotions, and if you’re not in one of those, you’re not getting in a lot of times. It’s not for lack of trying.”

This naturally raises many problems. Not only are fighters at he behest of managers, who ultimately do not enter the cage, but it also means that a fighter could be frozen out.

In addition, there may be pressure to take certain fights on short notice, or accept a purse that does not necessarily reflect their value.

After all, Duffee did admit that it was hard to act as a free agent due to the massive influence of managers. His following comments confirmed as much. 

Duffee On The Challenges

“I don’t know what managers do past make friends with the promoters and massage their guys in. I’m really lacking to understand what that is in MMA. And the reality is, if you don’t have a manager, a lot of times the promotions won’t even talk to you. They’ll dismiss you, and I don’t have an answer as to why that is. Have some ideas; every promotion’s different,” Duffee

Duffee is not the only fighter who has spoken out against such a problem. The current bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, expanded how managers from the MMA sphere are exploiting fighters.

O’Malley Slams Managers

And given the massive platform that O’Malley has by virtue of being a champion following his win over Aljamain Sterling, his comments were quite telling. And in a sport where a fighter’s career can change, O’Malley did not hold back. 

“I’m waiting to release it the right way. It will be – I think it’ll be a big deal, it’ll be massive, and it will hurt someone’s business and rightfully so. So I’m gonna put it out there the right way – I gotta talk to my legal team and make sure we’re doing everything right. But yeah, MMA managers are so bad. It’s horrible, it’s embarrassing; they’re stealing money from fighters; they’re taking percentages of these guys’ bonuses. That really p***es me off, to be honest,” O’Malley

Ultimately, the rise of more MMA organizations has given fighters more choice than ever before. And if that can have the impact of improving fighters’ purses, it can only be a good thing.