Chris Camozzi is in the MMA business and business is good

Through 10 fights in his UFC career, Chris Camozzi has never headlined a card or taken home a bonus for 'fight of the night' or 'performance of the night'.  He's been a solid performer without a doubt, which is why he's obviously still on the roster as he prepares for his return to action in July.

When it comes to fighter pay in the UFC, it's the guys in Camozzi's position that often seem to have the hardest time making ends meet while trying to get by on a smaller salary than stars like Jon Jones or Ronda Rousey.  Former UFC fighter John Cholish spoke out adamantly in 2013 when talking about how much money it not only costs to be a UFC fighter, but how the bottom line doesn't even come close to necessitating what it takes to be a well trained athlete in a professional sport.

Camozzi isn't going to argue with anyone about what fighters should be paid because at the end of the day every person on Earth wants to make more money, but just recently the UFC middleweight purchased a major online retailer for MMA goods from the salary he's pulled in as a fighter so he believes it's possible to flourish in this industry if you do the right things with the paychecks you make. 

"My wife and I just recently purchased Performance MMA and PerformanceMMA.com, they do a lot of online sales and it's also Colorado's only storefront as far as martial arts training equipment, boxing, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, we sell gi's, we sell gloves, we sell wrestling shoes, singlets.  Pretty much anything in mixed martial arts we cover," Camozzi revealed when speaking to FOX Sports.

"It kind of was a spur of the moment opportunity came up.  The owners had the business for I believe seven years now, they started it from the ground up and they're right next to our gym and they decided that they wanted to move onto something else.  They're both chiropractors and they've got all kinds of businesses and they were looking to move on, and they asked why I don't buy it?  So I didn't think anything of it, but then me and my wife talked about it and we thought it would be a great deal and it kind of fits into what I do now.  It allows me to train still and be around MMA all day."

Camozzi looks at his recent business purchase as both an investment but also as something he can still have after fighting is over. Currently Camozzi is only 27 years old so he's got plenty of time left in MMA, but all athletes have a shelf life and he knows he can't fight forever so purchasing a business like this gives him long term income planning for 20 or 30 years down the road.

"In this sport and in life, the more sources of income you can have the better," Camozzi said.  "Fighting only lasts so long and you never known when your last fight will be.  You just never know and it's always good to plan ahead.  I'm by no means retiring or quitting, I'm still young, but I wanted to create another source of income to create more stability for my family."

Part of Camozzi's financial success comes from the UFC and the other comes from the work he does with his management team to secure sponsors for all of his fights.  The sponsor conversation has become another major issue with MMA pay lately because the once ripe industry where fighters were sometimes making as much or more than what the promotion was paying them has all but dried up in a very slow and burned out economy.  The recently retired Mac Danzig was so frustrated with the business of sponsorships that for his last UFC fight before retiring, he actually went to the cage with no extra patches on his shorts in a protest of sorts for the lowball compensation and bad experience he'd had with that side of the business.

Camozzi took a similar stand a few fights ago after some companies were not even offering to pay but instead compensate the fighters with apparel or merchandise.  He ultimately decided that it wasn't worth compromising his value for the sake of a few t-shirts or rash guards.

Now the sponsorship market hasn't changed exactly since these problems started to exist, but Camozzi and his management team have started to look more and more outside of the traditional MMA sponsor tree to find new people to work with and the craziest thing happened -- it worked.

"My management, Ingrained Media, they go out and find me these deals that are kind of outside the box and outside of MMA.  A lot of these managers get stuck where they watch the fights and they see a sponsor on my shorts, and then every manager is calling this company trying to get sponsorships," Camozzi explained.  "I know this because my buddy works there and I have a good relationship with them and right after an event he'll say 'oh I got a call from this guy's manager'.  So some of these guys are just watching TV and then go out after the deals instead of making their own.

"I think a lot of MMA managers have tapped the well dry.  As soon as a new company comes in, everybody's asking them and wanting money until they pull out. For me, they are going out and bringing in new businesses to this sport, bringing in new money every time.  They put me in front of these people and I'm just real with them. Sponsorship makes me a salesman for their company.  I'm not just going to wear their logo, I'm going to be a salesman for their company.  I'm going to make sure they get their money back."

Besides buying Performance MMA, Camozzi has also invested his money in other ways that allow him to continue training full time to get better as a fighter without needing another source of income outside of the UFC.  It's not a perfect world and Camozzi won't deny any fighter who believes they aren't being paid well enough, but he has no complaints because this is the sport he chose as a career and he's happy everyday he goes to work.

"For me, I think it's being smart with your money," Camozzi said. "There's a lot of complaints about the UFC pay and of course I'd always like to make more.  Everybody would like to make more.  The owner of Budweiser would like to make more.  No matter how much you make, you always want more.

"For me, I can say I made more money fighting in the UFC than anywhere else. It is hard to complain about it."