The California commission has released the official purse amounts for UFC 311 fighters, but at this point they’re useless for trying to figure out how much the top fighters make.
The California State Athletic Commission is one of the few combat sports regulators left that still releases MMA fighter pay following an event, which means we now have dollar amounts for how much everyone was paid to compete at UFC 311.
Too bad all those amounts are wrong.
Usually you can rely on fly-by-night social media accounts to post made up fighter pay figures, but these days even the commissions can’t be trusted to provide accurate information in this regard. That’s because the UFC has been doing its absolute best to shut down the practice of government entities publishing purse amounts. And when they do have to disclose, they just provide partial amounts.
How is this legal? Well, the UFC only has to share the official fight purse. So while Islam Makhachev might technically make just $200,000 in purse on his bout agreement, as champ he has provisions that earns him a seven-figure amount from pay-per-view sales. He also has a separate overall contract, which can contain six or seven figure signing bonuses for each bout. Then there’s UFC-controlled promotion and sponsorship deals, which are also not included.
There’s plenty of ways for UFC to spread the money out and keep it secret. If it’s not technically purse money, it’s not disclosed by the commission. That’s why the following list of pay figures released by the CSAC last night during UFC 311 doesn’t tell you much other than the absolute minimum amount the fighters competing on the card got paid.
That being said, let’s take a look at the disclosed UFC 311 fighter pay as shared by the California State Athletic Commission.
Islam Makhachev $200,000 (No Win Bonus)
Renato Moicano $250,000
Merab Dvalishvili $500,000 (No Win Bonus)
Umar Nurmagomedov $100,000
Jiri Prochazka $250,000 ($200,000 Purse/$50,000 Win)
Jamahal Hill $200,000
Jailton Almeida $220,000 ($110,000 Purse/$110,000 Win)
Serghei Spivac $100,000
Reinier de Ridder $210,000 ($105,000 Purse/$105,000 Win)
Kevin Holland $250,000
Bogdan Guskov $86,000 ($43,000 Purse/$43,000 Win)
Billy Elekana $12,000
Raoni Barcelos $96,000 ($48,000 Purse/$48,000 Win)
Payton Talbott $43,000
Azamat Bekoev $24,000 ($12,000 Purse/$12,000 Win)
Zachary Reese $30,000
Grant Dawson $212,000 ($106,000 Purse/$106,000 Win)
Diego Ferreira $100,000
Ailin Perez $72,000 ($36,000 Purse/$36,000 Win)
Karoline Rosa $75,000
Muin Gafurov $28,000 ($14,000 Purse/$14,000 Win)
Rinya Nakamura $26,000
Benardo Sopaj $24,000 ($12,000 Purse/$12,000 Win)
Ricky Turcios $28,000
Tagir Ulanbekov $72,000 ($36,000 Purse/$36,000 Win)
Clayton Carpenter $28,000
The most interesting figure here is how Renato Moicano made $250,000 to step up and fight Islam Makhachev, while Makhachev was … only paid $200,000? Let’s be clear: as poor as the UFC’s fighter pay can be, there’s no way Makhachev is making less than a million dollars per fight, even before pay-per-view percentages are calculated. There are six other fighters on the card making $200K or more, including prelim fighter Grant Dawson.
Dawson came into the UFC via the first season of Dana White’s contender series and has a sneaky good record of 23-2-1. He’s listed as making $212,000 … $12K more than Makhachev. Yeah, good for Dawson, but that just shows you how the numbers at the top just aren’t real any more.