The top strawweight contender details some of her financial woes, but says that she is still ‘happy’ with her salary.
Jessica Andrade should already be next in line for a title shot, but the top strawweight contender still chose to compete at UFC 228 against Karolina Kowalkiewicz. She is risking losing her shot at the belt, but Andrade says that she is keeping active because she needs the money.
In fact, she sells her UFC gear or bakes cakes just to make ends meet and be able to finish this training camp.
“I’m going to my 14th fight in the UFC and it’s really difficult to get sponsors, to get people who want to help you financially,” Andrade told MMA Fighting. “Sometimes we have to sell UFC clothes, backpack, gloves, stuff like that, to make some extra money to finish a camp. It’s quite difficult, but we go on.”
“It’s difficult, but we get by the way we can, right?” she said. “Sometimes we bake a cake and sell, we get by the way we can. It’s sad that we have to sell our training gear, things we get in fights that are a good memory of what we had there, but we’ll get new stuff later [laughs]. I have so many of these white hoodies with my name on that no problem selling one, right?
Andrade’s last disclosed pay was $48,000 to show and $48,000 to win. She made sure to mention that she is “happy” with the UFC, but also noted how the promotion has stopped giving discretionary bonuses to the fighters.
“When I got in the UFC, we would always get a little extra pay-per-view bonus and everything else,” Andrade said. “We won’t make that much anymore because of Reebok. But we would always get an extra percentage of the card. So if it was a good card, every athlete would get a small percentage of the pay-per-view, a percentage of the video game. We don’t get that today anymore.
“I think that should come back, us getting those extra little bonuses. In my first fights, I got $8,000 outside of my purse and sponsors. When I was short of money, that little bonus came and wow, that really helped [laughs]. That was great, that really helped us. I think we should have that again.
“But I’m really happy with my job, really happy with how much I’m paid. I think it can get better, but it’s good for me for now.”
Andrade is entering the fifth fight of her eight-fight contract, and hopes to sign a new deal with the promotion before an eventual title clash with Rose Namajunas. She says she is planning on investing in restaurants or supermarkets in the future so she “won’t have this problem of having to fight only to get paid.”