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As Bloody Elbow continues to take a deep dive into the “Internal Zuffa Bout Compensation” list that was unsealed from the UFC lawsuit, several more likely payouts have likely been revealed.
In Part 1, we uncovered the biggest payouts from several of the UFC’s biggest draws such as Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey and Jon Jones. In Part 2, we were able to determine possible payouts for 33 more former UFC champions.
Together with John S. Nash, we were able to unveil the most likely payouts for almost 50 fighters in this latest edition, including women’s champions and dozens of other UFC stars that never won the belt.
How did we figure out the likely payouts of all these UFC fighters?
As noted earlier, an appendix from the unsealed Roger D. Blair’s expert report had an “Internal Zuffa Bout Compensation” that listed the payouts to every UFC fighter from 2011 to 2016.
Individual fighter names weren’t listed, but the report does include how many bouts that fighter has had in the UFC at that point, along with how many fighters received such a payout.
Combining that with information from disclosed purses from lawsuits, athletic commissions, along with confirmation from several fighters on background, we were able to parse through the sheet and make a fairly educated guess to identify the most likely purses for dozens of UFC stars.
It’s worth noting again that while many of the biggest totals match our other sources, there could always be inaccuracies and human error involved in these — such as Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s most likely payout for her seventh fight being listed as her fourth on the sheet.
As a side note: Most of the discrepancies seem to be with the women’s strawweight division. That may be the result of the TUF season in 2014, were 12 women were supposedly paid the equivalent of two purses for competing. These additional payouts seems to have been included in the total number of bout compensations for that year, as the Internal Zuffa Bout Compensation includes more bouts in 2014 than were actually fought.
That being said, here’s what we saw after doing a deeper dive into the document.
Headliner bonuses
Most of the headliners of Fight Night events we’ve seen on this payout sheet seem to have received a $25,000 bonus.
Lowest UFC payouts
2011: $4,000 – One fighter on their third UFC fight received the lowest payout on the entire list. Three debuting fighters in 2011 got paid $6,000. Most common pay for debutants was for the 21 that got $9,000. It’s worth noting that Dustin Poirier came from the WEC and debuted in 2011 on a $4000/$4000 contract.
2012: $6,000 – One debuting fighter, and two on their second UFC fight received this amount in 2012. Three other debuting fighters that year got $8,000. Most common pay for debutants were the 17 that got $9,000.
2013: $8,000 – Four debuting fighters, and two on their second UFC fight got this amount in 2013. 30 debutants got $11,000.
2014: $8,000 – Four debuting fighters got this amount in 2014. 90 Debutants got $11,000.
2015: $6,400 – One fighter on his second UFC fight got this amount. Four fighters debuted on $8,000, and 15 debuted on $10,000.
2016: $10,000 for five debutants, and two on their second UFC fight. 21 fighters received $12,000 on their UFC debut.
While $10,000 was the minimum declared in commissions for years (and eventually bumped up to $12,000), in the sheet we’d see that majority of the debutants earned a little over that. For example, 90 debutants in 2014 got $11,000, and only a few got the minimum $10,000 for losses or $20,000 for wins. This would likely indicate that most of the new fighters at the time, even those that lost, got varying discretionary bonuses of at least $1000.
In 2023, common minimum purses for debutants are $10,000, for the dozens of Contender Series signings. UFC signed 45 fighters from the 49 bouts on the latest DWCS season alone.
Highest UFC payouts
2011: $4,314,289 for Georges St-Pierre
2012: $3,197,908 for Georges St-Pierre
2013: $4,374,326 for Anderson Silva
2014: $1,237,880 for Jon Jones
2015: $4.54M and $4.48M, for Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey.
2016: $8,000,000 for Brock Lesnar
Share of compensation
John S. Nash also crunched up more numbers. Splitting the 5004 payouts into five equal parts or quintiles, we see that the top 20% get 76.2% of the total fighter compensation, while the rest of the field split the remaining 23.8% of the money.
The middle quintile averaged just under $30,000, which is close to the median pay for the class period. The bottom two quintiles, or 40% of the total payouts, had fighters receiving less than $24,000.
Bottom Quintile
Total: $11,687,150
Min: $4,000
Max: $15,000
Average: $11,675
2nd Quintile
Total: $19,450,800
Min: 15,000
Max: $24,000
Average: $19,431
Middle Quintile
Total: $29,995,700
Min: $24,000
Max: $40,000
Average: $29,996
4th Quintile
Total: $58,865,150
Min: $40,000
Max: $82,200
Average: $58,806
Top Quintile
Total: $383,589,799
Min: $82,500
Max: $8,000,000
Average: $383,207
UFC payouts for former WMMA champs
Bloody Elbow has uncovered payouts for 49 more UFC fighters from Zuffa’s internal sheet, but we were only able to determine a few from the female UFC champions. Outside of Ronda Rousey and a couple of exceptions, most of them didn’t really have high enough purses at the time and were hard to distinguish from the rest of the field.
Amanda Nunes
$150,000 or $245,000 vs. Miesha Tate — Disclosed Purse: $150,000 (100K+50K bonus)
$1,837,354 vs. Ronda Rousey — Disclosed Purse: $250,000 (100K/100K+50K)
Miesha Tate
$453,000 vs. Ronda Rousey 2 — Disclosed Purse: $28,000
$2,048,343 vs. Amanda Nunes — Disclosed Purse: $500,000
Notes:
Tate had PPV cut as champion, and payout for Nunes fight benefited from being in UFC 200.
Holly Holm
$1,100,000 vs. Ronda Rousey
$2,986,830 vs. Miesha Tate — Disclosed Purse: $500,000
Notes:
Tate fight was part of McGregor vs. Diaz card.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk
$2,296,484 vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
Notes:
Seems to be a numbering issue on the sheet, counting this total as the fourth fight in 2016, when it should’ve been Joanna’s 7th. She got a PPV cut and was part of the UFC 205 event with Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez headlining.
PPV draws like the Diaz brothers, Sonnen had contrasting deals
It’s typically UFC champions that get a cut of the PPV, but these three PPV draws all got very different deals and paths to those big events. Nick Diaz came in as a Strikeforce champion, Nate Diaz had to enter TUF and grind for years before getting PPV points very late in his career, while Chael Sonnen only got a flat fee.
Nate Diaz
$125,000 or $180,000 vs. Gray Maynard — Disclosed Purse: $80,000 (15K/15K+50K bonus)
$56,000 vs. Rafael dos Anjos — Disclosed Purse: $16,000
$2,838,158 vs. Conor McGregor 1
$4,315,490 vs. Conor McGregor 2 — Disclosed Purse: $2,050,000 (2M+50K bonus)
Notes:
The biggest purses are much easier to determine on the sheet, but we only have these few figures for Nate Diaz, because he sadly didn’t really get paid much before that. Very few people go past 20 UFC fights, but for his 21st bout, Diaz was still on a publicly reported $20,000/$20,000 contract.
Sources told Bloody Elbow that Diaz also had a LOA, or Letter of Agreement, that paid an additional $40,000 that was not disclosed to the athletic commission or public.
Nick Diaz
$275,000 vs. BJ Penn — Disclosed Purse: $275,000 (200K+75K bonus)
$500,000 vs. Carlos Condit — Disclosed Purse: $200,000
$1,244,460 vs. Georges St-Pierre
$956,184 vs. Anderson Silva — Disclosed Purse: $500,000
Chael Sonnen
$1,050,000 vs. Anderson Silva 2 — Disclosed Purse: $50,000
$1,050,000 vs. Jon Jones
$400,000 vs. Shogun Rua — Disclosed Purse: $150,000 (100K + 50K bonus)
Notes:
Sonnen supposedly received a $1 million discretionary bonus for both of his big PPV fights in this class period against Silva and Jones.
Sonnen has been trying hard to defend UFC pay, and his recent efforts included making dubious claims and inflating the non-disclosed bonuses that he got from the promotion. He claimed to have earned $8,800,000 in the rematch against Anderson Silva, when in reality, lawsuit documents showed that Silva got just $2.5 million while Sonnen got $1.05 million — over eight times less than his claim.
Some Strikeforce and PRIDE stars got (relatively) bigger pay
It obviously doesn’t apply to everyone who switched, but the biggest stars and champions from the buyout of Strikeforce/PRIDE came into the UFC with relatively bigger purses compared to their other peers.
Gilbert Melendez
$260,000 vs. Diego Sanchez
$300,000 vs. Anthony Pettis — Disclosed Purse: $200,000
Alistair Overeem
$816,983 vs. Brock Lesnar — Disclosed Purse: $380,000 (190K/190K)
$619,047 vs. Antonio Silva — Disclosed Purse: $285,714
$619,048 vs. Travis Browne — Disclosed Purse: $285,000
$310,143 vs. Ben Rothwell
$471,428 vs. Stefan Struve — Disclosed Purse: $150,000 (100K/50K)
$390,000 or $464,286 vs. Roy Nelson
$542,857 vs. Junior dos Santos — Disclosed Purse: $542,857 (342,857/200K)
$504,000 or $775,000 vs. Andrei Arlovski
$1,092,736 vs. Stipe Miocic — Disclosed Purse: $800K
Wanderlei Silva
$765,000 or $1,070,000 vs. Rich Franklin
$800,000 vs. Brian Stann (Includes 50k Fight of the Night and 50k Knockout of the Night bonus)
Dan Henderson
$1,133,329 vs. Vitor Belfort 2
$850,000 vs. Hector Lombard — Disclosed Purse: $850,000 (600K/200K+50K bonus)
$825,000 vs. Michael Bisping
Mark Hunt
$210,000 vs. Junior dos Santos — Disclosed Purse: $210,000 (160K + 50K bonus)
$500,000 vs. Fabricio Werdum
$700,000 vs. Brock Lesnar — Disclosed Purse: $700,000
Cung Le
$420,000 vs. Wanderlei Silva — Disclosed Purse: $420,000 (350K+70K bonus)
$370,000 or $450,000 vs. Patrick Cote — Disclosed Purse: $150,000
$220,000 or $590,000 vs. Rich Franklin
Gegard Mousasi
$200,000 vs. Jacare Souza
$200,000 vs. Costas Philippou
Jacare Souza
$250,000 vs. Gegard Mousasi
$191,000 vs. Chris Camozzi
Josh Thomson
$145,000 or $200,000 vs. Nate Diaz — Disclosed Purse: $145,000 (85K/10K+50K bonus)
Tim Kennedy
$140,000 vs. Rafael Natal
$138,000 vs. Michael Bisping
A few UFC title challengers got a varying bumps in pay
A few fighters made it onto this list because of the one-time pay bumps they got from challenging for the UFC title. Most that lost their title shot seemingly got a sharp drop back down in pay on the next fight.
Cat Zingano
$300,000 vs. Ronda Rousey
Notes:
We couldn’t determine her other actual payouts, but Zingano’s disclosed purse before the title fight was $9000/$9000. Next fight after title loss, disclosed purse was $35,000.
Alexis Davis
$274,000 vs. Ronda Rousey
Notes:
Davis’ disclosed purse before the title fight was $15,000/$15,000. Next disclosed purse was two fights after (with one win that bumped it up a little), and was $27,000.
Joe Soto
$120,000 vs. T.J. Dillashaw — Disclosed Purse: $20,000
Notes:
Soto went back to the same $20,000 disclosed purse on his next fight.
Chris Cariaso
$74,000 vs. Demetrious Johnson
Notes:
Disclosed purse before title fight was $21,000/$21,000. No disclosed purses for after the title fight.
Kyoji Horiguchi
$48,000 vs. Demetrious Johnson
Notes:
Horiguchi’s previous disclosed purse was already $20,000/$20,000 so he didn’t really get much of a bump up in pay for his title bout compared to the others listed here.
Chad Mendes
$198,000 vs. Jose Aldo
$700,000 vs. Conor McGregor — Disclosed Purse: $500,000
Notes:
Mendes’ disclosed purse was $45,000/$45,000 before the Aldo title fight. He dropped back to the exact contract with $48,000/$48,000 after the Aldo loss. He got another bump for the McGregor interim title fight, then dropped to $82,000 on the fight after.
Jake Shields
$580,000 vs. Georges St-Pierre
Notes:
Shields disclosed purse before the title fight was $75,000/$75,000. No disclosed purses for after the title fight.
Alexander Gustafsson
$500,000 vs. Jon Jones
Notes:
Gustafsson’s disclosed purse before the title fight was $30,000/$30,000. No disclosed purses for after the title fight.
Payouts for the 13 most tenured UFC veterans
While some got better pay from other promotions or title fights, here are a few of the homegrown and tenured vets from the UFC. While each of these fighters had around 20 or more UFC fights, most of their bouts (especially if they didn’t get a performance bonus to bump up the total) were tough to distinguish from the other payouts.
Donald Cerrone
$111,000 vs. Paul Kelly — Disclosed Purse: $110,000 (18K/18K+75K bonus)
$109,000 vs. Charles Oliveira — Disclosed Purse: $109,000 (22K/22K+65K bonus)
…
Read the rest of the post over at our Substack page.
There are far more payouts for Donald Cerrone and 24(!) more fighters in the full post, where we take a look the most tenured UFC fighters ever, and several other MMA stars.
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