ESPN the Mag story tabs Lesnar as highest paid fighter at $5.3 million in 2010

I saw Stitch in an interview lately saying UFC fighters at the lower levels are making more than boxers comparatively.

 

You can't quantify it though because boxing cards are scattered as opposed to UFC cards which are centralized.

I'm sure for every Clay Guida making 50K for a fight, there is an up and coming boxer making that much somewhere.

 

This is speculation.

 

They must be getting more these days then (well they definitely are, I've noticed, since the days Hanzy used to post the UFC pay).

Just a couple of years ago you used to get guys like Jardine etc getting 20k a fight. At the time, boxers of a similar level would get far more.

 

As you should.

 

All I can say is please never let the day arrive where a fight like GSP-Shields doesn't happen because GSP wants a 60/40 split of the money and they can't come to terms. Or worse yet, a fight failing to be made because Shields doesn't want to fight in GSP in Canada.

Pay scale isn't something the public should decide. It's 100% at the discretion of the company and it's employees. If any UFC fighter feels like they are underpaid they have the option to quit and do something else.

People can debate all day long about the comparison between the fighter's pay of boxing and MMA, but they are completely different products supported by entirely different business models.

Funny but the closest thing to the boxing model present in MMA is M-1's representation of Fedor. And it's probably cost fans and Fedor those dream match-ups versus UFC fighters.

No thanks.

 

A very close friend of mine, Landon Showalter, is the classic "well travelled journeyman" in mma. He has about 40 fights and his record is pretty close to 500. He has fought for just about every org you can think of but never the UFC, he's beat guys in the UFC, but never fought for them. He makes about 10 grand a fight. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. He keeps getting invited back by local orgs because he never puts on a dull show. I swear he wins fight of the night everytime he fights win or lose. I think for the talent level Landon is, he does pretty damn well financially and I know he'd agree.

 

Keep smoking. Fighters have complained more than once and envy boxers salaries.

You can do your own research.

 

Yeah, but oddly most of the biggest complainers like Ortiz and Couture both ended up choosing to fight for the UFC again.

 

They envy the salaries TOP boxers in the sport, which are only a couple. But WHO WOULDNT! We are not talking about the top level here idiot.

 

Agreed. In the pay department, I would rather be the 10th best MMA Lightweight in the world as opposed to the 10th best LW boxer.


I remember reading an article somewhere about the Mosley-Margarito PPV. Apparently Shane and Antonio split a purse of like $3 million which left just shy of $75,000 to be split among the other 14 fighters on the card. It was an average of around $5000 per fighter. I am recalling from memory so no one needs to respond with "Umm actually it was $6000 per fighter."

I think that speaks directly to some of the primary difference between MMA and boxing. Whether it's the lesser fighters making peanuts of the prima donna headliners demanding huge sums, I personally just like the UFC model.

The UFC, as well as most MMA organizations, know that it takes a full card to sell an event. Most people would be willing to shell out $49 to watch a big MMA fight like Lesnar-JDS even if the under card was shit. However, a fight like Edgar-Maynard III, as well as most UFC PPV's, require other good match ups to sell the card.

Because of that approach, the salaries can't be completely top-heavy like the Mosley-Margarito example above. You need fights like Rampage-Hamill and Frank Mir-Roy Nelson to make people spend the money. And those fighters need more than $5000 typically.

 

Mosley-Margarito wasn't on PPV.

Boxing pays you what you draw. The main event fighters draw the crowd so they make the biggest cut. Its really not hard to understand.

 

Did anyone say differently?

 

If it was an MMA event the 3 mill split would have been a 1 mill split between everybody. Boxers still get a much higher percentage of the revenue even if it is the top end guys that get it. Its the same way it works in other sports.

 

Again, you're regurgitating what everyone has already said. The top boxers make more while the middle to lower boxers make less. It's been said a dozen times in this thread.

And neither is really a good example of what happens in other sports. I'd love to hear another sport that determines an athletes pay the same way boxing does.

 

It depends what the middle and lower level guys draw.