UFC 77 took place at Cincinnati’s U.S. Bank Arena on Saturday, Oct. 20. The pay-per-view event produced a live gate of $2,519,850 (a U.S. Bank Arena record). A sold-out crowd of 16,054 attended the show. Tim Sylvia, who defeated Brandon Vera in the night’s co-main event, received the highest reported salary at $200,000 (Vera earned $100,000). Anderson Silva, who defended his middleweight title in the night’s main event, earned a reported salary of $120,000. His opponent, Rich Franklin, earned $45,000. The total disclosed payroll for the event was $652,000. The full list of reported salaries includes: Anderson Silva ($120,000) def. Rich Franklin ($45,000) Tim Sylvia ($200,000) def. Brandon Vera ($100,000) Alvin Robinson ($6,000) def. Jorge Gurgel ($7,000) Stephan Bonnar ($44,000) def. Eric Schafer ($6,000) Alan Belcher ($22,000) def. Kalib Starnes ($7,000) Yushin Okami ($24,000) def. Jason MacDonald ($17,000) Demian Maia ($10,000) def. Ryan Jensen ($4,000) Josh Burkman ($20,000) def. Forrest Petz ($6,000) Matt Grice ($6,000) def. Jason Black ($8,000) Every winning fighter earned a salary that was 50 percent to show and 50 percent as a win bonus. For example, Sylvia earned $200,000; $100,000 of that was his base salary, and the other $100,000 was earned as a win bonus. (Likewise, all of the night’s losing fighters would have doubled their salaries with a victory because of the win bonuses.) Now, the usual disclaimer: the figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, which can oftentimes be a substantial portion of a fighter’s income. They also do not include any bonuses paid to some of the main-card fighters who sometimes earn a small cut of pay-per-view revenue. They also do not include other special/non-disclosed bonuses the UFC sometimes pays. In other words, these are simply base salaries reported to the CSAC and do not represent the total amounts earned by each fighter. In addition to the salaries above, Silva earned an additional $40,000 Knockout of the Night bonus, Maia earned a $40,000 Submission of the Night bonus, and Grice and Black each earned a $40,000 Fight of the Night bonus.
why he pays the heavyweights a little bit more? :dunno: this is not boxing, people pay to see the light heavys, middleweights and welters.
stephan bonnar is a roid head who got caught yet he made as much as rich franklin. okami is a better fighter than him too. how did brandon vera make that much? ufc heavyweights are garbage
The live gate alone was almost 4 times greater than the what they paid for every fighter on the card?
The UFC no longer publically releases their ppv buyrates. They haven't been doing so in quite a while now.
A year ago they were happy and hype to announce their numbers....ortiz vs. liddell..ortiz vs. shamrock...700,000-1,000,000+...but then they got shy...
Rumour has it they keep this information hidden even from their own fighters. You should read a bit on the mma sites out there. A lot of the hardcore mma fans have spoken about this and say there's some shady sh*t going on within the UFC. Not surprising really.
Quote from Kalib Starnes who lost to Belcher at UFC 77: “Two layers about 15-20 [stitches] in the meat, and 15-20 in the skin…. It cost me about five times as much as I made just to train for that fight, I took a huge financial loss, I’m more upset about that than I am about losing actually. I left with $4,800 after taxes and deductions. Every time I fight I gamble with my health, reputation and financial well being and to have a cut just destroy all my hard work and personal sacrifice like that, I can’t help but wonder if it’s even worth it.†Another fighter pissed about his UFC pay! When will it end? :dunno:
..... Stuff like that makes it really easy to where there could be fixes in MMA. He could make a lot more getting people to gamble against himself than he made otherwise.
Seeing all those crazy upsets lately and considering your statement is spot on, i'm pretty sure there is fix. If they even fix tennis matches where the players earn much more you would be pretty naive to assume otherwise.