Blackzilian lightweight Desmond Green is coming off a TKO win in the opening round of the Akhmat Lightweight Grand Prix Tournament in March against David Cubas and his next fight will not be taking place in Russia as Green has elected to pull out of that tournament.
Instead of continuing in the tournament, Green (16-5) will return to competition on June 3 in Daytona Beach, Florida at Final Fight Championship 24 against Desmond Hill. So why did Green decided to pull out of the Akhmat Lightweight Grand Prix Tournament? Green explained during Thursday’s edition of “The MMA Report Podcast,” that he decided to pull out of the tournament when the payout structure changed.
“So I am kind of bummed out. What happened was we were promised — so when I first got the contract, it was a tournament format and we were promised a certain amount of money each fight,” Green stated. “That is a main reason why I decided to go over there and compete as opposed to staying home. Because I have a great name in the states and I am in a great place. Going over there, it actually puts me in a bit of jeopardy just being foreign. But the money was well worth it. So that is why I agreed.”
“The first round, boom. They paid us our money,” he continued. “It was $10,000 and second round we were supposed to get $30,000 to win. All of a sudden, they hit us up and they are like ‘listen, we lost a sponsor. We can only pay you $10,000 to win again.’ And they changed the amount in the finals also. Which was also significant. We just made that. It’s a 20 hour travel time. They changed my opponent on top of that and things are just a bit — there is no commission. It was just not worth it for the amount of money they were trying to give again.”
“They would not even budge if you tried to negotiate because you are talking about a $20,000 decrease after trying to pay me for the next round. Even larger decrease for the finals and they never got back to us so we kind of just pulled out. I have me and two other of my teammates in the tournament. When they hit us with that and they were not trying to negotiate or do anything besides pretty much what they said, we all just decided to back out of the tournament and pursue fights back here.”
Check out Green’s complete interview from Thursday’s edition of “The MMA Report Podcast” below and be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes and Stitcher.