“Ur a jackass get fedors nuts outta ur mouth.” “Go follow john mayer u puss!” “bro ur name is OMG lady gaga!? LMFAO you should be beat with a fuckin stick and kicked in the nuts repeatedly.”

These are some of the classy tweets written by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White, who also spoke at July’s Republican National Convention. White’s penchant for adolescent banter and public temper tantrums makes him a perfect companion for Donald Trump.

Trump, whose proposed tax reforms are the most regressive in history, hopes to do to the United States what White, with his financial partners Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, have done to the UFC: create a tiered system that shuttles wealth to the top, while spouting “everyman” populist rhetoric.

Since White and the Fertittas purchased the near-bankrupt blood sport for $2 million in 2001, they have turned it into a billion-dollar global enterprise. The company recently sold its majority shares for an unprecedented $4 billion — the highest-grossing sale in sports history.

Their success has made White and the Fertittas the poster boys for leadership, innovation, job creation, and other virtues Trump has proclaimed during his rise to political power. Yet like the worker abuse at Trump’s Taj Mahal, the stories of the many fighters, referees, and cutmen who have not shared equally in the UFC’s profits have been conveniently sidestepped.

Certainly, some referees and fighters — like Herb Dean and Conor McGregor — make big bucks, pulling in six-figure salaries or seven-figure fight purses. And of course White and the Fertittas — who hold more shares than White — are doing fine. They have estimated net worths of half a billion and $2–3 billion respectively.

But many UFC workers are so underpaid and poorly supported that their wages and benefits do not cover basic needs. UFC Hall-of-Famer Mark Coleman started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for his medical expenses. Other fighters — especially women — hold down second jobs because they make as little as $6,000 per fight.

“Big John” McCarthy earned less than $2,000 for refereeing UFC 194’s main event. However, echoing the neoliberal “do what you love” mantra, he says that he “loves combat sports so much that he doesn’t mind the low pay at all.”

The UFC maintains this disparity, which leaves some fighters driving Lamborghinis while others would be better off “emptying trash cans,” through its individual contractor model. Each fighter signs a contract for a certain number of fights and months of service that also designates specific pay for each fight. They earn more money if they win and make as little as half if they lose.

In boxing, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act established minimum purse standards. But no legal minimum regulates UFC pay. Fights aren’t their only source of income, though. White and the Fertitta brothers occasionally give some employees discretionary checks if they perform especially well or are deemed “loyal.”

Fighters cannot quit to work for another promotion company, but the UFC has the right to either terminate or automatically extend their contracts. If fighters win a championship during the last fight on their contract, then they must fight again.

A similar clause requires fighters to complete their months of service, even if their contracts are interrupted by injury or a prison sentence. In other words, when fighters are incarcerated or recovering from surgery, they are obligated to return to the UFC as soon as they are released or recovered.

Further, a non-disclosure clause bars fighters from publicly discussing their salaries. Information has filtered out, however, from fighters who have broken their contracts in protest or whose court cases against the UFC have been released.

Zev Eigen — a former Yale law professor — notes that the UFC’s contracts violate the Thirteenth Amendment, the National Labor Relations Act, and provisions won by the Ali Act. He describes them as “the worst [contracts] he’s seen in the sports or entertainment fields.”