T.J. Dillashaw punching Renan Barao

By FCF Staff

As 2017 winds down, it doesn’t look like a union for MMA fighters will be created anytime soon, and the NBA’s Michael Carter-Williams can’t believe that’s the case.

Carter-Williams is a point guard for the Charlotte Hornets, and as a result, he is a member of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). Carter-Williams, who is a big, MMA fan, was recently a guest on “The MMA Hour”. During the interview, the basketplayer had this to say about the state of labor relations in professional MMA (quote via MMA Fighting):

“They absolutely should. I think it’s crazy that they already don’t have a union,” Carter-Williams said. “And I know it’s hard, but come on, they put their lives on the line every time they step in the ring. There’s no reason why their payouts are [what] they are now. And it’s because they don’t have a union.”

“Dominick (Cruz) and I were talking about it, and I was like, ‘How don’t you guys have a good enough union to where you guys don’t have health insurance, or you guys don’t get paid more?’ To me, that’s beyond crazy, and it is — it’s going to need to take the top guys of the UFC to not fight until the payments are what they should be, and [the benefits] are where they should be…”

The most recent effort to create a union for UFC fighters was started by the Professional Fighters Association (PFA), under former baseball agent Jeff Boras.