Did the Coffee County School Board do the right thing by not extending the contract of Schools Director Kenny Casteel?

	Yes
	No
	The board's reason behind its decision should have been made clear

Fighting Corner 1/21/12

Written by derek harryman | 26 January 2012

Before we get into the UFC on FX event – I want to talk about the recent reports on fighter pay in the UFC. ESPN aired a segment of Outside the Lines last weekend; bashing the UFC for the amounts they pay fighters. In the full interview, which ESPN would not air, Zuffa co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta all but proved the ESPN report wrong – even going as far as pointing out how much more the UFC pays fighters than ESPN. UFC fighters aren’t making boxing money but they aren’t starving either. In-fact no UFC fighter has come out publically against the pay scale. Every fighter who has been brave enough to go on record - has supported the way the UFC does business. Zuffa only publicly reports the pay it is required to – the fighter gets paid much more than what is public knowledge and the better you fight, the more you make. It seems like a pretty fair system to me. In boxing you have situations where fighters are making so much money that?it gets in the way of putting together the best fight.
Take the Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao debacle; if they were UFC fighters, they would have fought four years ago and would have already had at least one rematch. That is the reason MMA is growing and boxing is dying; the promoters have too much power in boxing. The UFC take more of an NFL approach to business – they are the leagues, you are going to play by their rules and if you do well, you will be handsomely rewarded. Is the UFC a perfect business model? No, but I’ll take it over what is left of the shattered structure of boxing any day. The company and the sport will continue to grow and the fighters will continue to make more and more money – one day Jon Jones might make Mayweather money – and I have a feeling Dana White would be the first one to love to see the sports grow to that point. I realize that this is coming out Saturday and the Nashville UFC show was last night, but the return of the UFC to Nashville is worth writing about and the company put together a solid fight card from top to bottom for the event.
As I write this - I am finalizing plans for attending the event. The highlight of the night for me will be seeing Pat Barry take on Christian Morecraft. The heavyweight bout won’t the highlight of the division in 2012 but Barry is always entertaining to fight. He is also highly respected in the MMA world and has trained with the likes of Mirko Cro cop and Brock Lesnar. Barry is a K-1 kick boxer and although he is coming off two straight losses to Cheick Kongo and Stefan Struve – he is usually very entertaining to watch.
I will have a full recap of the event in next week’s Fighting Corner. In other news it was announced this week that Strikeforce 135 pound champion Miesha “Takedown” Tate will defend her belt against the fast-rising phenom “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey on March third. The last time two women headlined a Strikeforce card - it was the promotions second most successful event. Gina Carano versus Cris Cyborg was a huge draw for the company and I feel that this fight could be even bigger. The Carano, Cyborg fight was big because of Carano and only Carano. This fight will be a draw from both corners of the cage.
This fight will be a huge step forward for women’s MMA and if they can lure Carano back, the division could finally have enough fire-power for Dana White to take it seriously.