After only making $80,000 for his first fight with Jon Jones, UFC CEO Dana White sent Daniel Cormier a $1 million bonus check.
Jones vs. Cormier is undoubtedly one of the fiercest rivalries in MMA history. Squaring off against one another on two separate occasions, the animosity between the consensus GOAT and the former two-division titleholder remains as strong as ever.
Looking back on their first-ever meeting at UFC 182 in January 2015, ‘DC’ revealed that he’d only made a paltry $80,000 to show. That matched with sponsorship money earned him roughly 150k for one of the biggest events of the year. According to Tapology, Jones vs. Cormier brought in 800,000 buys at $59.99. That translates to roughly $48 million even before you factor the gate and what the promotion took in via sponsorship deals of their own.
Understandably, Cormier was frustrated with the payday after all the work he’d put in and the amount of money the UFC raked it. Luckily, White was quick to make it right with ‘DC’ and sent the Hall of Famer a million dollar check the very next day.
“Back in 2015, I fought Jon Jones for the first time,” Cormier said on The Pivot. “I was making $80,000 to show up and $80,000 to win. I lost. All that, and I made $80,000. And I made like $80,000 on sponsorships on that night. I was like, ‘Man, for all that, I’m gonna make $150,000, it’s crazy.’
“Dana White calls me two days later, ‘Y’all killed it. The numbers were out of this world; we’re going to send you $1 million. Dude sent me a check for $1 million the next day” (h/t Bloody Elbow).
Daniel Cormier insists fighters are often taken care of behind the scenes
UFC fighter pay has been under scrutiny for years as the organization typically shares 15-20% of its total revenue with fighters — an especially low amount when compared to other professional sports organizations like the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL who regularly hover around a 50% revenue share.
However, Cormier stressed that fighters often receive bonuses behind the scenes that are not disclosed to the public.
“And then, it was Lorenzo Fertitta at the time; he was the owner. Lorenzo liked his champions making $1 million. So, even if your fight purse was $350,000, and you sold another $300,000 in pay-per-views, he’d send you another $400,000 to make sure you made $1 million every time you got in there.”
“So, they try to protect the athlete a little bit by not showing exactly what you make. A lot of it is hidden. And you also make money on the pay-per-view side. So, if you become a guy like Conor McGregor, like Jones, like Israel Adesanya — you start selling pay-per-views, man, you get $2 a buy, $3 a buy, $4 a buy. Then that money really starts to go.”
