Pretty much no one ducked anyone when the pay was low and you had to take fights just to survive. The UFC had all those older big names over a barrel because they were making so little so they always had to stay active just to keep up with their mortgage lest they continued to work a day job, which a handful did.
Modern fans caught up in the pro wrestling aspect of MMA fail to realize fighters are not scared of each other or anyone in most cases. To even compete at that level, you left being intimidated by someone behind long ago. At best, a fighter sees someone as a bad technical matchup so it's a higher risk of not scoring enough points in 25 minutes in some judge's eyes to get a victory and then having your earning potential severely diminished.
So most fighters want more money to compensate for that risk. And today, that money is more available than it used to be.
