Cat Zingano: UFC Fighter Retreat Speaker Told Us To ‘Be Conor McGregor’

Add UFC women’s bantamweight Cat Zingano to the list of fighters unhappy with this past week’s UFC fighter retreat.

Zingano recently joined Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour to talk about her experience at the Vegas event, and it wasn’t a good one. In the midst of the event Zingano was left wondering the same thing her fellow combatants were – why are they still broke when the company is spending money bringing in people such as Kobe Bryant, Michael Strahan, and Snoop Dogg? (quotes via MMA Fighting):

“If this retreat was meant to tell us about all the newness that is happening, not only the millions of dollars that they probably spent on this event, and the carpets at the event that will be used once, and wall fixture that will be used once, and how much money went into bringing Snoop in and Michael Strahan in, and Kobe Bryant — what did these guys get paid to come do this?” she said. “When we’re sitting here broke, or struggling. Or the people that are still on top in the world are wondering what they’re going to do next in their career.

“It was really hard for me personally seeing how they’re throwing out all these companies making all this money, and we should be honored to be considered on the same level of popularity of these companies.”

“Alpha” went on to state that she doesn’t think the UFC is considering everyone’s positions when speakers are telling them how to invest their money, and they don’t have any money to actually invest:

“That was more insulting than anything, and I don’t know if they considered that when they were creating the content, when they were like look, we get this many viewers, we sell this many fights to this many homes a year, blah blah blah, and all of us are still sitting there knowing exactly what we get f*cking paid,” Zingano said.

“How much is Kobe getting to be there? And I love the man. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Strahan. Michael Strahan is actually one of the producers that did my documentary [Religion of Sports], so I have an invested emotion in actually liking this guy because he was delicate with my situation and my story. I do care about these guys, but it’s like, how much did it cost to get them there? How much did it cost for Snoop to be there for a private concert? And every carpet in this hotel saying ‘Fighter Retreat?’ Why not spread that money out over us? Or get us health insurance? We’re getting welcomed to a family, this professional athlete family, a world family. Kobe’s telling us how to invest our money. Tell me how do I invest and intelligently get a return on f*cking five thousand dollars?

“I don’t feel they were considering at all our positions.”

The former 135-pound title challenger also stated that one speaker, who was being ‘extremely condescending’ to the fighters, told them they wouldn’t be ‘sh*t’ if they lost and that they should ‘be Conor McGregor‘:

“There was a guy on stage, being extremely condescending to us, and I thought that was product placement,” Zingano said. “I thought it was. And no, he’s out there representing us, promoting ourselves and our brand, telling us if we lose we aren’t sh*t and they don’t care about us, and to be ourselves.

“That was the best quote of the whole seminar, was ‘be yourself, be Conor McGregor.’ I was like, done.”

One thing that really set Zingano over the top was the 50 percent off coupon that Reebok gave fighters. Zingano is frustrated that the ‘the company that took all my money’ now wants more:

“They gave us these boxes, these UFC boxes, which had shoes and sweatpants or something in it,” she said. “On the bottom of the box, it had this coupon, and I pick up the coupon when I got home. Someone had said while we were there, dude, f*ck all of this, how are they sitting here educating us about Reebok when Reebok is already taking all of our money? Everyone’s upset about it, that we lost so much money, lost any credit with any sponsors ever.

“So I get home and I find that thing on the bottom of the box, and I was like — so, this is really what I’ve worked this hard for? This is me, I’ve made it, I’m one of the best in the world at something, I’ve f*cking made it — and this is what I get from the company that took all my money, is they want more?”