During an discussion on the ‘Off The Record’ sports talk show late last week UFC President Dana White attempted to shoot down heavyweight fighter Brendan Schaub’s claims that he makes over $100,000 per fight in sponsorship money, but now Joe Rogan has leapt to his defense.
On the show White named Schaub as one of three fighters (the other two being Tim Kennedy and Matt Mitrione) who were “very vocal” about the new Reebok sponsorship deal which they feel is going to hit them hard in the pocket.
Singling out Schaub, White mockingly read out a list of the heavyweight’s supposed sponsors and added sarcastically, “I’m sure this guy is making over one hundred thousand dollars a fight.”
Schaub then appeared as a guest on the latest edition of UFC color commentator Joe Rogan’s ‘Fight Companion’ podcast on Saturday morning where he stated that he wasn’t looking for a fight with the UFC, but stood by his claims.
“I don’t know when that interview was,” Schaub said. “[Dana] called me and went over the sponsors and those sponsors that he read on the show – that’s from a banner, those aren’t sponsors, those are gyms that I train at…I just think he was misinformed. Someone misinformed him.”
Rogan, who made it clear he sees White as a close friend, called the situation, “unfortunate”, and backed up Schaub by revealing that the fighter had shown him tax returns which prove he was telling the truth.
Rogan urged Schaub to release that information publicly, but it appears that Schaub doesn’t want to rock the boat.
“What am I going to do, go to war with Dana over this?” Schaub asked, adding, “I don’t want to be the Tito Ortiz of the Reebok deal.”
Nevertheless, Schaub admitted he was bothered by White’s comments and had spoken to his dad about it, but had come to the conclusion that perhaps we was one of the fortunate few who were making good sponsorship by himself while other fighters weren’t and would be better off with the new Reebok deal.
With that in mind he said that he’s a team player and if the Reebok deal is good for the majority of fighters then he’s happy to stand behind it.
Watch Dana White and Brendan Schaub’s comments for yourselves in the two two videos below.
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Dana White interview with Michael Landsberg: (From 3.25mins)
Bredan Schaub on Joe Rogan’s ‘Fight Companion’ podcast: (From 2hrs 38mins)
