Mixed Martial Arts Forum banner

UFC Career Fighter Earnings

7K views 39 replies 22 participants last post by  Soojooko 
#1 ·
Ever wonder how much money your favourite fighter has earned throughout their career? Us too, so we went about figuring it out. Here is the total career earnings for every UFC fighter over the past seven years (the only fighter we are missing is Renzo Gracie, who we currently can't get a good pay estimate for).


But, before we reveal the list, first some ground rules. Athletic commissions didn't start releasing fighter purse info until 2004, so the info below only reflects money earned from UFC 46 and onward. Also, these are only the reported salaries plus Fight of the Night, Knockout of the Night and Submission of the Night bonuses that have been made public. Many top performing fighters get additional bonuses paid out to them that aren't reported, plus the top guys get a cut of the pay-per-view buys for events that they headline (not to mention every fighter makes sponsorship money). Also, many athletic commissions don't report fighter's salary info, so for those we've estimated a fighter's purse based on what they have earned in their other fights. Fighters with some estimated purses are marked with a * in the database. This data should still be considered very close to accurate, as most fighters' purses remain rather steady from fight to fight (unless they ink a new contract in the meantime).

This list is a living, breathing thing - we will be updating it after each UFC event's pay info is released, so check back often.


http://www.mma-manifesto.com/ufc-fi.../salary-main/ufc-career-fighter-earnings.html
 
#2 ·
Bisping, coming in at number 7, is the only guy in the top 14 to have never held a UFC title. Everyone else up to number 26 (Cheick Kongo) has held either a UFC title, the pride belt or pride grand prix belt.

I actually don't hate Bisping, but it is hard to justify his salary based on his achievements.
 
#7 ·
Current net worth according to Celebrity Net Worth:

Anderson Silva - 8 Million
Randy Couture - 9 Million
Rampage Jackson - 8 Million
Tito Ortiz - 15 Million - Jenna 30 Million
Chuck Liddell - 16 Million
Chael Sonnen - 4 Million (wow he wasn't kidding about making money)
BJ Penn - 40 Million
Rashad Evans - 6 Million
 
#10 ·
Am I the only one that feels that Bisping gets paid too much? I mean, I get that hes posterboy for UFC England, but dang. He makes more than champions. And never have I said "oh Bispings figthing, I cant miss this!" never. His style doesnt do it for me.

I am glad Chuck sits at the top. That guy defined the UFC/MMA for quite a while and still does for some people.
 
#11 ·
Which champions? because outside of Anderson Silva, Bisping has been here longer than Aldo or any other champion having the belt. This business is all about selling the product, if you sell the product, you get more money and Silva had that problem for a long time, as in not getting high PPV numbers until the last year or two.

Not really a Bisping fan but to say he makes more than champions when the champs haven't been here long or haven't had the belt long, doesn't really make a strong case.
 
#14 · (Edited)
At the TUF 14 Finale bisping got paid 275k to show and 150k to win. Thats $425,000. In his last fight, he made $275k to show when he lost against Chael. Thats more than Anderson Sliva, Chael Sonnen, or Tito Ortiz made at UFC 148. Bisping's to show money was the same as Forrest's to show and win money. That's crazy. Now, I understand that in under the table money, these other guys are probably making more. But why does Bisping get $425,000 to fight and win, while Anderson gets paid $200,000? Hell, Brock Lesnar, the biggest draw in the UFC ever, was making $500,000. You can't tell me that Bisping is worth almost as much as Brock. At UFC 129, GSP made $200,000 to show and $200,000 to win. And Bisping made more than that to beat Mayhem Miller.

I am very aware of this just being what pay is revealed. Im just trying to compare apples to apples because we can't know really how much a fighter makes after PPV buys and sponsors.
 
#16 ·
Well its not really apples to apples... Fighters who get a cut of the PPV money make MULTI-millions of dollars per fight, so the disclosed fight purse means VERY little. There are a few fighters who dont even get a win bonus, because they know their money is going to come from the PPV.

So why does bisping get so much from his purse? Probably because he doesnt get much from the back end, and he is the face of MMA in the UK..

Why does Silva and GSP make so little from their purses? Because the purse amount is irrelevant. It could be $1.00 and they would still make multi-million dollar pay days from PPV money.

That is why lists like this are USELESS. They are comparing flawed data!
 
#20 ·
How much does Bisping get a fight? because after his next fight he could be in the top 5 right? that is quite unbelievable when you think that guys like Brock, Anderson, BJ, Jones, Wandy etc. are below him, with that said i think they get a % of the PPV too so not a true reflection of their earnings but interesting non the less.
 
#21 ·
I didn't add it up but it looks like Mayweather makes about as much in 1 fight as every UFC fighter makes their entire career combined.

There may be a couple guys getting PPV earnings, but there'S REALLY NO DEBATE, THE UFC IS ROBBING THEIR FIGHTERS BLIND.

150 UFC EVENTS AND EVERY UFC FIGHTER IN HISTORY COMBINED TO MAKE WHAT MAYWEATHER MAKES IN 1 FIGHT.
 
#23 ·
I hate the "UFC fighters don't get paid enough" bullshit. If someone said to me right this second "I will pay your flights etc. and give you $1000 if you fight Cain Velasquez", I'd take it in a heartbeat. I could get KOed brutally by the dude calling me a wanker outside ot the chip shop, so if I'm cool with taking that risk with nothing but my "grr man pride" on the line, then getting 1k for getting my ass kicked is no issue at all. There dudes make LOADS of money. If a low level guy fights 4 times a year he could be looking at 80k (before expenses) or something, not to mention post fight bonuses. They make the exact amount that they should imo. Mayweather makes loads? He's also refusing to fight Pacquiao at 50/50 because he "makes more money". Do you want to see that in MMA? Mayweather/Pacquiao...Silva/Weidman? If you want money to become a huge drive of fighters in UFC, then theres no way in a billion years Silva would accept the Weidman fight.

MMA fighters are FIGHTERS. Not businessmen. That's why I'm an MMA fan. The Clydebank Blitz is the nickname of a boxing hometown hero Gary McArthur, I grew up watching boxing, I was posting on ESB years before I knew this existed...but because MMA isn't this moneybags operation where people fight with dollar signs in their eyes, it's by far the better sport imo. The second fighters start making 50 million a fight, is the second I start watching XARM.
 
#29 ·
Of course you would take the fight. So would I. We have nothing to lose, do we? We get our ass kicked for one night and we get paid. Losing to a MMA fighter such high calibre is nothing to be ashamed about as well. We earn extra income for basically getting whupped.

However, our day job ain't MMA fighting. These people need the money for survival. Their career span is short, and they need to earn as much as possible before retiring/finding a lower pay job. If they take high-risk fights and lose, not only would they drop down ranking wise, their career might soon be in jeopardy and they would find themselves in the lower-paying leagues again. Try thinking from the fighters' perspective.

Mayweather and Pacquiao both made up excuses to not fight each other. They do not want to fight each other, and neither can they be forced to fight each other as boxing has a different organisation structure to that of UFC. However, UFC can make the fighters fight each other. Otherwise, just fire them. I'm sure no UFC fighter wants to be cut, considering the monopoly hold UFC has on the MMA industry. So what is preventing the fighters from earning more money?

I just googled XARM to get a clue what you are talking about. If you are considering watching that over MMA...:confused05:
 
#26 ·
Wonder how much was truly profit after expenses. Goes to show how young of a sport this is. The mid tiered NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL stars make what Chuck did in his lifetime in one season. It's astounding. Not knocking on the UFC at all because what they've done is nothing short of amazing. How many other companies are able to be in the black during the recession and actually continue to grow and expand.

I'll tell you what though. Experiencing what they went through for UFC 151 didn't help their cause.
 
#35 ·
A piece was posted up on here a little while back, regards a new fighter on the UFC roster. I cant remember who. He basically outlined that his purse for his fight was around 15k but in reality he earned 80k. That's over 7 times his purse. And this guy was a relative no-name.
 
#39 ·
The people saying that MMA fighters don't earn enough money are the same people that will be complaining that everything is commercialised in MMA in 10 years time.

Money ruins shit. It's as simple as that. It makes footballers dive, it makes boxers pick and choose, it makes pro wrestlers appear sporadically, it makes pornstars stop taking it in the bumhole...everything.

MMA fighters earn a lot of money. It's as simple as that. 15k a fight is a lot of money. The expenses they have are really not that big of a deal. They book all their friends flights and stuff because they want to prove they are a draw, and in turn earn MORE money. If they just sat on the 15k, take (complete guess) 5k out of that training camp, and at worst take 5k out of that for other exprenses, these people are making 5 thousand dollars for (at that amount) 15 minutes of fighting. Tell at guy on minimum wage that UFC fighters dont earn enough money and we'll see what he says.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top