Zebaztian Kadestam not happy with ONE Championship deal: “Pay me what I’m worth”

Zebaztian Kadestam. Photo: Stefan Romare

On May 5, Swedish former ONE Championship welterweight champion Zebaztian Kadestam will take on the tough Roberto “Robocop” Soldic at ONE Fight Night 10.

The Swede recently said that the fight against Soldic the best and biggest fight he had so far in ONE, but visiting Sweden’s leading fight podcast Käftsmällspodden, “The Bandit” revealed that he’s not satisfied with the financial deal he has with the promotion.

“I’m not happy, let’s put it that way, but I survive,” Kadestam said in the latest episode of the podcast. “If I win this fight I will say thank you and goodbye [to ONE Championship] and go somewhere else.”

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I know how much money other fighters at the same level make in other organizations. My problem is that I got stuck with a contract that said that when I became champion in ONE, my first contract doubled.”

“I took my first fight in ONE on two weeks notice, and recived like a box of papers, and I was like ‘fuck it, let’s go, it’s a oppurtunity’, so I ended up with a hole in my contract,” Kadestam said. “But it is what it is. I have two fights left on my contract, and then we will see what happens. Go somewhere else or they have to pay me what I’m worth.”

Read more: Zebastian Kadestam intends to “knock Roberto Soldic’s head off” to steal his hype

Zebaztian Kadestam: “UFC are top dogs”

The Swedish knockout artist did not say which organizations he would prefer if he leaves ONE, but did reveal that there is on promotion he doesn’t care too much about.

“I like UFC of course. I don’t like Bellator at all, because they make it almost impossible to watch their events. They are not trying to reach beyond the American market and you barely know when someone are having a fight.”

“We have Karl Albrektsson who competes there (in Bellator), and we have Oliver (Enkamp) from the gym. We know when they are competing, since we are training together, but when is the organization going to announce that they are fighting? I don’t know what they are doing.”

“UFC are top dogs,” Kadestam said. “If you take the top fighters of every organization you’ll get good fights. But the minimum level in UFC is higher than the minimum level in the rest of the organizations.”

Read more: Fan favorite forced to pull out of UFC 287 due to undisclosed reasons

Subscribe to Frontkick.online on YouTube for the best MMA videos in Scandinavia, and make sure to follow us on Instagram for the latest news and updates!