All the rumors and speculation that the UFC is handing out millions to its stars and practically pennies to its supporting characters have been answered, thanks to a lawsuit that aims to shed light on the financial flows of the world’s biggest MMA organization. Until now, salary information has always been questioned because the law protects the right of athletes and organizations to discretion. In rare cases like this one, we get a deep look behind the scenes, and here’s what data Bloody Elbow brought out after the documents were released to the public.
The numbers you’re about to learn are only for 2011-2016, as the court is looking at those 5 financial years for the UFC. It is also important to emphasize that the names of the fighters are not listed, but their matches are known, so a quick reference clearly shows who, when, what money was paid.
Ronda Rousey remains the biggest star among women to this day, although a number of others have achieved more serious sporting success after her. She earned $574,720 for her match with Liz Carmucci, and her fee for her fight with Betty Correia is $2,642,204. We emphasize that these amounts are transferred to her bank account only from the PPV bonuses, not including the guaranteed amounts of the contract her with the UFC. There is a clause in her contract that gives her the following bonuses. $1 per PPV package between 200-400k sales, $2 per package for every 400-600k sales, $3 per package for every 600-900k sales and $4 per package for every purchase over 900k In total, she earned $13 million in seven dates. including all her remunerations.
The data on Conor McGregor is also quite interesting. Still, he is considered the UFC’s “golden hen” and is practically the reason the organization has spread far beyond the borders of the United States. “The Notorious” was guaranteed $20 million just for participating in 9 fights in that span, and after calculating official performance results, salaries, bonuses and PPVs, he earned between $3,285,000 for his bout with Chad Mendes and $6,812,364 for the bout with Eddie Alvarez. What is more interesting here, however, is that the data that Forbes published about McGregor indicates that he made much more money than officially announced. Such discrepancies are one of the reasons for the investigation, because the tax authorities in Washington suspect that the UFC may have been evading taxes.
Brock Lesnar got into the ring twice in those years, but in those years he earned $3 million from the meeting with Alistair Overeem and $8 million for the one with Mark Hunt. This proves that he is undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in mixed martial arts in general.
Georges St-Pierre is also UFC royalty. His salaries ranged from $3.2 million for the Carlos Condit fight to $4.3 million for the Jake Childs fight.
Andersson Silva earned the most from his appearances between 2011-2016 kg. He fought a total of 9 times and never made less than $2 million.
We cannot miss the rewards of the other “golden hen” – John Jones. However, his numbers are a little more modest compared to the others, but his star status also became a fact a little later. He took home $1,237,880 for his meeting with Glover Teixeira, $2,677,539 for the one with Ovins St. Preux and $3,637,500 for the first match against Daniel Cormier.
It is worth mentioning the debut of CM Punk, who first signaled that something big was coming between the WWE and the UFC. He was paid $1,042,736 for his fight against Mickie Gall.
