{"id":161436,"date":"2015-08-18T19:05:42","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T02:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=161436"},"modified":"2022-02-04T18:18:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T02:18:20","slug":"thomson-ufc-just-couldnt-match-bellator-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/thomson-ufc-just-couldnt-match-bellator-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomson: &#8216;UFC Just Couldn&#8217;t Match Bellator Deal&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-141336\" src=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins.png\" alt=\"Josh Thomson UFC Weigh Ins\" width=\"730\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins.png 730w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins-300x156.png 300w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins-585x305.png 585w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Josh-Thomson-UFC-Weigh-Ins-390x203.png 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;My understanding is that we have to wear Reebok with the UFC. There&#8217;s no other option. Well, you get paid to wear Reebok but you only get paid in their program, whatever their pay scale is. I took my negotiations over to Bellator, where there is no sponsorship tax, so my sponsors can sponsor me directly.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;So, if I have a company that is sponsoring me for $20,000 per fight, my sponsors aren&#8217;t getting taxed by Bellator, which is more money in my pocket. You can&#8217;t say that the UFC can match that. They just can&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Former UFC lightweight and Strikeforce champion Josh Thomson recently left the UFC and joined up with his former boss Scott Coker at Bellator MMA.<\/p>\n<p>Thomson talked to <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/mma\/post\/_\/id\/22396\/thomson-on-ufc-departure-i-treated-this-like-a-business\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESPN<\/a> about the decision and said that in the end, the UFC just couldn&#8217;t match the kind of offer he was getting from Bellator, which included non taxed sponsorship money.<\/p>\n<p>Will more fighters take this route and go where they&#8217;ll be more lucrative?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>UFC Fighters Give Us Their Favorite BJ Penn Moment! What&#8217;s Yours? &#8212; Must Watch!<\/strong><br \/>\n[ooyala code=&#8221;JpN2pzdjqWA8WOLaJwwNHph5i6sCiLAA&#8221; player_id=&#8221;bd214e34cfad476984102de4bf5e8da2&#8243; width=&#8221;1280&#8243; height=&#8221;720&#8243; auto=&#8221;true&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8220;My understanding is that we have to wear Reebok with the UFC. There&#8217;s no other option. Well, you get paid to wear Reebok but you only get paid in their program, whatever their pay scale is. I took my negotiations over to Bellator, where there is no sponsorship tax, so my sponsors can sponsor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2616,"featured_media":160277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[44,2681],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thomson: &#039;UFC Just Couldn&#039;t Match Bellator Deal&#039; | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/thomson-ufc-just-couldnt-match-bellator-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thomson: &#039;UFC Just Couldn&#039;t Match Bellator Deal&#039; | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; &#8220;My understanding is that we have to wear Reebok with the UFC. 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