UFC President and CEO Dana White announced that he is eliminating signing bonuses for fighters in an effort to avoid complications during contract negotiations.

During an interview with the L.A. Times White stated that the major reason for the policy change is the UFC’s ongoing problems with UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture.

Couture is claiming that the alleged signing bonus he received for coming out of retirement to fight Tim Sylvia was actually a "locker room" bonus and not a "signing bonus". This claim coming after he resigned from the UFC in October citing a lack of respect from Dana and other UFC executives. Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta deny Couture’s claim and state that the advance was, in fact, his signing bonus.

The "locker room" bonuses have become more and more common with fighter’s as of late. They allow fighter’s such as Keith Jardine to earn a decent amount of money per fight. Jardine otherwise would have only earned his salary of $14,000 even though he defeated Chuck Liddell in a PPV main event in September.

The impact of eliminating signing bonuses is yet to be determined but I would tend to think it won’t make that much of a difference. Fighter’s are finally starting to earn respectable sums per fight and the pay should continue to increase as the sport grows. Will we ever see fighter’s earn salaries that compare to that of Alex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds? I doubt it, even though they deserve it.

Like Motocross, MMA has a very small percentage of fighter’s who make a lot of money and a huge percentage of fighter’s who make very little. Some fighter’s even work full time and train part time. It is unfortunate for those who aren’t at the top level. It think this will change eventually but until then props go out to all of those fighter’s who are struggling to make a living in the insane world of mma.

The original article can be seen at latimes.com.