(This is the second in a two-part installment on the ongoing push for a fighters association. Part one can be found here.)

For a guy like UFC middleweight Tim Kennedy, a staunchly conservative, gun-loving Green Beret who actually lives the Texas Republican lifestyle that most Texas Republican candidates merely pretend to, nothing throws his own self-interest into such conflict with his political beliefs quite like the concept of a fighters association.

“This is where it sucks for me,” Kennedy told MMAjunkie. “Because I f-cking hate unions. I hate them. It goes against the vast majority of my politics, where I stand economically, all that. I have a big problem with unions. I also have a big problem with low-information people being taken advantage of, and that’s what we have here.”

By here, he means the world of MMA, but especially the UFC, where Kennedy has been an outspoken critic even since before his debut with the promotion in 2013. His concerns are almost entirely financial. Fighters in the UFC, he insists, don’t know their worth, largely because the UFC keeps financial information such a closely guarded secret. Fighters have no idea how much the UFC takes in, he said, or what percentage of that revenue it pays out.

“All we can do is guess,” Kennedy said, which is what makes it even more frustrating for him when other fighters on the roster don’t seem to see that as a problem.

“If you look at the UFC roster, you have a lot of what you might call low-information voters on issues like this,” Kennedy said. “They have no idea what they’re worth. They have no idea what they should be getting paid, or how much damage they’re doing to their bodies. Especially the young guys – the guys who are in the five- to 10-fight range, they’re happy to be fighting in the UFC. Their perception of their worth is whatever the UFC tells them they’re worth.”

Here’s where we get into the question of what, exactly, an association might do for the fighters who belong to it. The first thing that comes to most people’s minds is money. Collective bargaining would likely result in higher payouts across the board, both from the UFC itself and from other companies the UFC does business with, such as EA Sports, which uses fighters’ likenesses in its UFC video game.

But to those in favor of an association, the money itself is only part of the equation. The money is, in a sense, a byproduct of information, which is what many of those on the management side of the business say is missing in their negotiations with the UFC. Without knowing what the revenue split looks like between the UFC and its fighters, many managers say, they have no way of knowing whether their clients are getting fair, equitable contracts.

“The problem right now is that not only is there not a level playing field, there’s not even a clearly defined playing field,” said one manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic. “We don’t know what the revenues are.”

Another manager lamented that between sponsorship deals, the UFC video game, and broadcast rights both domestically and internationally, to go along with the money the UFC earns from pay-per-views and its UFC Fight Pass streaming service, there seem to be more and more sources of revenue available to the promotion. While the UFC’s revenue streams have grown, however, those available to fighters have dwindled down to a trickle.

“The business is getting exponentially bigger,” one manager said. “But the result has not been an equitable split of revenue for all the players in the space – except the UFC.”

This is especially apparent in the UFC’s recent apparel deal with Reebok, many managers said. Not only did that deal force all UFC fighters to wear what essentially amounts to a uniform, it also limited their sponsor income – a major source of revenue for many UFC fighters. Some fighters were earning annual six-figure incomes from relationships with sponsors, managers said, but those deals have largely evaporated or been re-negotiated for much lower figures in some cases.

With sponsors unable to stick a logo on their fighters’ shorts during UFC events, it simply doesn’t make sense for them to continue paying for exposure they are no longer getting. Now all fighters wear Reebok from head to toe, and their payouts are determined by a tenure-based system put in place by the UFC. What’s worse, several managers said, is that fighters got no say in the matter.

“The UFC says, ‘Oh, we respect you guys, we want to work with you,’” said one manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Yeah? Then why didn’t I get a phone call? Why didn’t you talk to any of us about this? This is a deal that is hurting (fighters) significantly.”

According to UFC officials, who would only agree to answer questions via email, it does communicate often with fighters and their managers, though they believe the organization might not get full credit for those efforts.

“We communicate with athletes, and their managers, agents and attorneys, on a daily basis,” UFC officials wrote. “We are constantly exploring ways to improve the business relationship between the UFC and athletes who compete in the organization. In our opinion, UFC has done more for athletes in combat sports than any other company in history. As just one example, UFC was the first promoter, and is still the only promoter to our knowledge, that provides accident insurance to athletes outside of competition.”

‘A seat at the table’

To the former UFC fighters involved in the class-action antitrust lawsuit, the Reebok deal seemed like the latest outcropping of a problem that has existed for years. When it comes to business matters that affect the lives and livelihoods of those who compete inside the cage, they said, fighters don’t get a voice.

And it’s not just an issue with sponsor pay, said former UFC middleweight Nate Quarry, a plaintiff involved in the antitrust suit against Zuffa, the UFC’s parent company.

“Take what happened a few years ago when (UFC President) Dana White just decided, ‘All main-event fights are now five-round fights,’” Quarry said. “Well, for a fighter, that means your workday has been extended by two-thirds. You would think, in any other job, you’d get more compensation because of that. Fighting for 25 minutes as opposed to 15 minutes is a huge difference. And yet there was no extra compensation for that. Fighters didn’t get a say in it at all.”

To Rob Maysey, the Arizona real estate attorney who helped initiate the antitrust suit, and who has been pushing for an MMA fighters association for nearly a decade, that’s the primary problem he hopes to help fighters address.

“That’s what they get, is they get a say in how things go,” Maysey said. “Right now they don’t get a say, because they are not organized.”

The fighters’ lack of a voice goes beyond financial negotiations with the UFC, Maysey pointed out. It also extends to how fighters are treated by other promoters, but perhaps more importantly how they interact with regulators, such as state athletic commissions. Fighters may have grumbled on social media about the five-year ban UFC fighter Nick Diaz received after a contentious hearing before the Nevada State Athletic Commission following his third failed drug test for marijuana, but they lacked the ability to force any real change.

That, Maysey said, is a problem fighters could fix relatively easily. The same way NFL players like Tom Brady can count on the NFL Players Association to advocate on their behalf in conflicts with league management, an association might give fighters the ability to influence everything from the actions of commissions to the selection of judges and referees.

“When they roll into the (Association of Boxing Commissions) convention 500-strong and say, ‘We want the following things,’ they cannot be ignored,” Maysey said. “They just can’t. They will have a seat at the table.”

A look at how NFL players got an association of their own might prove to be an interesting history lesson for many MMA fighters. The process wasn’t easy or quick, and in fact many of those playing in the league when the push for the NFLPA began in the mid-1950s were long since retired by the time the NFLPA signed its first collective bargaining agreement with NFL team owners in 1968.

The NFLPA’s initial demands when it held its first meeting in 1956 were relatively modest. Players wanted guaranteed contracts, a $5,000 minimum salary (the equivalent of about $44,000 in 2015), and clean, safe equipment maintained and paid for by the teams they played for.

NFL team owners initially refused to recognize the NFLPA, and the association didn’t start to make headway until after its own antitrust lawsuit – Radovich v. NFL – made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling, the court ruled in favor of Bill Radovich, an offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions who was blacklisted in the NFL after leaving the team to play for the rival All-America Football Conference, which later folded.

But Radovich filed his initial suit in 1949. The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule in his favor until 1957, when it found that the NFL was not exempt from antitrust laws. Even then, owners didn’t recognize and collectively bargain with the NFLPA until 1968, following a successful Super Bowl broadcast and a brief work stoppage.

That’s a long, hard slog to acceptance – 12 years between the formation of the NFLPA and its recognition by team owners. If things followed a similar course in MMA, it would likely mean that few, if any, of the fighters on the UFC roster today would still be around in the organization, or possibly even the sport, long enough to see the organizing effort bear fruit.

That’s a fact Maysey doesn’t shy away from when he talks to fighters, he said.

“For some fighters, that’s absolutely true,” Maysey said. “They will be retired. My response back to that is, leave the sport better than how you found it. You might want to be a trainer someday or own a gym. Some of you have families and kids. Leave the sport better than how you got it.”

As one current fighter MMAjunkie spoke to put it, the idea of improving life for future generations of fighters is a nice thought.

“But it doesn’t do much for me in my career right now,” said the fighter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also makes for a hard sell when pitching the idea of a fighters association to those fighters who are already in the top spots in their respective divisions.

UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson has come out against a fighters association, in part because, as he told MMAjunkie, “I worked my way up, paid my dues, and I’m a point now where I’m making good money.”

Johnson also said he worries about the unintended consequences of a fighters association. If the UFC is required to pay each fighter more, or offer guaranteed contracts that it can’t release fighters from once it no longer finds itself in need of their services, that might very well encourage the UFC to hand out fewer contracts.

“This is a hard way to make a living no matter what,” Johnson said. “A lot of people think that if we’re unionized, it would be better, but I guarantee you that a lot of the guys I’ve fought wouldn’t have a job right now if we were in a union.”

Then again, a slimmer UFC roster might not be such a bad thing, according to several managers. Several said they had fighters waiting so long between fights that it became essentially impossible for them to survive on fight-related income alone, especially now that the UFC’s deal with Reebok had severely limited their sponsor pay. When fight offers do eventually come through, those managers said, their fighters are almost obliged to agree to any opponent on any date, whether the fight will be televised or streamed online, simply because they can’t afford not to fight.

To Gary Ibarra, who manages several of the fighters involved in the antitrust suit, as well as several other current UFC fighters, this seems like a symptom of the UFC’s strategy for dealing with competitors like Bellator.

“You’ve got to remember, the UFC signs a lot of these fighters, not to give them fights, but to keep them away from other promotions,” Ibarra said. “If it had to deal with an association, it wouldn’t have as many guys under contract, which it shouldn’t.”

‘They have everything they need to get this done – if they want to’

The way Ibarra sees it, the antitrust lawsuit is the long path to a fighters association. It might ultimately be successful, he said, but likely not for years, which could be longer than many current fighters can afford to wait.

What fighters don’t seem to realize, according to Ibarra, is how much power they already have, should they choose to exercise it collectively. All it would take is for a majority of the fighters on the card for an upcoming UFC event to refuse to fight unless UFC ownership recognized a fighters association. That might also bring other, more established unions into the fray, he said, since in many places the support staff who work UFC events, whether pouring beer at the concession stands or setting up the cage, are union members themselves.

“They have everything they need to get this done – if they want to,” Ibarra said. “The problem is that no one has stepped forward and said, ‘Look, we’re going to start this association. All you guys under contract with the UFC, get behind us and we’ll get it going.’ If they could get the thing they need most, which is the solidarity of the fighters, they could get it done over a weekend.”

But even among the fighters who support the idea of an association, there isn’t much enthusiasm for a work stoppage. Some said they simply couldn’t afford it. Others said they doubted that enough other fighters would join in, or that the effect would be profound enough to offset the risk.

According to one manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity, such a work stoppage might benefit lower-level fighters the most, but they’re also the ones who might be least likely to support it.

“For some of them, that one fight could be 25 or 50 percent of their entire UFC career,” the manager said. “Then you’ve got fighters like the (female) strawweights – they just came in from Invicta (FC), and they’re happy to be in the UFC. They’re not going to walk out.”

One fighter who asked not to be named said he supported a fighters association in theory, and believed it was an inevitable development as the sport continues to grow and mature.

“But I’m not going to sacrifice my career for that,” he said. “I think a better way to do it would be to bring something constructive to the UFC and ask them to support it, rather than being destructive about it. You’d need a positive voice, someone on good terms with the UFC to stand up and say, ‘This is what we need and what’s good for the sport.’ If that happened, I’d support it. But I haven’t seen that happen yet.”

The way Ibarra sees it, the fact that it hasn’t happened yet makes him somewhat pessimistic on the possibility that it will ever happen as a collective action undertaken by current fighters in good standing with the UFC. Whether the issue is Reebok or drug testing or sudden firings, he said, fighters haven’t shown much backbone when it comes to dealing with the UFC.

“The UFC has done pretty much everything possible to alienate these guys and still they haven’t acted,” Ibarra said. “The only ones who have acted are the guys who are retired, or who are out of the UFC and no longer beholden to them. And you can’t get it done that way. You can’t get it done with ex-employees.”

‘It’s almost like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting’

One fighter who hopes Ibarra is wrong about that is former UFC welterweight Jon Fitch. After his time in the organization, he understands what current fighters are thinking when they decline to take action, he said. He thought the same things back when he was cut for the first time in 2008, shortly after refusing to sign away his likeness rights.

“I guess I just had it in my head that I’d be able to change things myself,” Fitch said. “I’d win the title, and then once I had it, I’d be able to tell them no and tell them how things should be. But I was waiting until I was in that role as the champion in order to do that.”

That never happened for Fitch. Instead, he was cut for the second time following a decision loss to Demian Maia at UFC 156, which came immediately after a decision victory in a “Fight of the Night” effort against Erick Silva at UFC 153. Explaining the move to release Fitch, who went 6-2-1 in the UFC following a loss in his lone welterweight title shot, White told reporters Fitch was “super f-cking expensive” after nearly eight years in the UFC.

The title may be where the money is, but it’s also an exclusive club that only a small fraction of professional fighters will ever manage to join. The problem is that while fighters seem to have no trouble understanding that concept as it applies to the field at large, most remain steadfastly convinced that they’ll be the exception.

Fitch thought the same thing, which is part of the reason why he was such a late convert to the push for an association, he said. It wasn’t until he sat through one of Maysey’s presentations that his mind began to change.

“You go to the first meeting with a lot of skepticism,” Fitch said. “It’s almost like an (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting. Guys say their names, how many years they’ve fought for Zuffa, and then they go into stories of things that happened to them and how they were treated. It’s crazy because there’s always little things that happen to you, and you think you’re the only one. Then you start hearing these other guys’ stories and how it affected their lives and their fights, and you realize this can’t go on.”

In recent years Fitch has become a passionate advocate for fighters’ rights, but that was a relatively late development in his MMA career. It’s the same for Quarry, who retired in 2012 and admits he doesn’t have much to lose by speaking out against the UFC and in favor of a fighters association now.

“Would I have stepped up like I am now back when I was the one fighting?” Quarry said. “Honestly, I don’t know. I try to be honest with myself, and so I have to say that I don’t know if I would have. This was how I fed my family.”

That so many fighters seem to wait until they’re beyond the UFC’s reach before pushing for fighters’ rights is not lost on those currently in the organization. UFC middleweight Josh Samman said that while he respects the fighters involved in the antitrust suit, he also has concerns about how their own personal baggage might affect their advocacy.

“There is something to be said for the fact that that group is, for the most part, made up of disgruntled fighters,” Samman said. “If they don’t have the voice of someone inside the organization who’s on good footing and has been treated well, I don’t know. You have to get somebody besides that core group – and I’m a fan of all those guys – but everyone notices that it’s a bunch of ex-UFC fighters who didn’t have a clean break from Dana White or the Fertittas. Their motives may be pure, but to some people that’s going to come across as a vindictive agenda.”

According to one manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity, this is a cause in which the messenger may be as important as the message, at least in the eyes of current fighters.

“I’m not against what they’re doing,” the manager said. “But it’s hard to attract current high-profile fighters the way they’re doing it, and they haven’t. With the group they have, it’s going to be an uphill climb.”

In any conversation about a fighters association, this seems to be the intractable dilemma. The lower-level UFC fighters are waiting to become higher-level UFC fighters. The higher-level fighters are waiting until they’re champions. The champions feel like they’ve paid their dues and are finally reaping the rewards, so why should they hit the pause button to help future generations? Among current UFC titleholders, only featherweight champion Jose Aldo can be regularly counted on to voice his support for a fighters association, and even then he often does so tepidly, more as a general idea than any specific effort.

The few superstars of the UFC, such as Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, could probably rally instant support if they were to speak up in favor of an association. But then, Rousey and McGregor are also two of the highest paid fighters in all of MMA, and the most beloved by UFC executives, so why should they bite the hand that’s feeding them?

This is something that Fitch still thinks about, especially when he recalls that first release from the UFC back in 2008. That’s when he first met Maysey, he said, and also when he brushed him off as “some guy in a suit” offering up big talk about a fighters association.

Even at that low point, Maysey’s argument in favor of collective action failed to move him, Fitch admitted.

“But, I mean, if it had been Chuck Liddell who’d come to our gym back then and said, ‘This is what needs to happen,’” Fitch said. “Yeah, I think I would have listened to him.”