Derek Brunson started the latest chapter of his career on the right foot this past November 2023.
The former perennial Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight Top 10 contender, Brunson, parted ways with the promotion midway through 2023 to sign with Professional Fighters League (PFL). No longer feeling like he fit with UFC, Brunson successfully debuted against two-time PFL Welterweight champion, Ray Cooper III, when he won a unanimous decision at the 2023 PFL Championship.
Financially, Brunson teased shortly after the fight on social media that he was paid handsomely and continues that sentiment to start 2024.
“For sure, my biggest payday ever,” Brunson told MMA Fighting. “It’s pretty good. It’s a lot more than the UFC, I would say that.”
In UFC, the show-win contract model has become the norm for the majority of athletes. However, the bigger flat-rate payouts have been common for most elsewhere in combat sports, leading to more enticement. An argument for the show-win model could be that it incentivizes excitement or the urge to win. Brunson doesn’t see the lack of a win bonus as a difference maker in not having to “worry” about it.
“If you get the right athletes, any athlete fighting at a high level wants to win,” Brunson said. “They’re not going to go out there and just say, ‘Oh, I got paid a lot of money, I’m going to lose.’
“But just being comfortable with how they’re taking care of you makes a big difference,” he continued. “They took care of me and I wanted to go out there and get the win, and still incentivize the win, but definitely an upgrade from my previous payday.”
Brunson, 39, enjoyed a lengthy run in UFC that lasted over a decade and saw him go 14-7 (24-9 overall) against some of the biggest names in the division. Amongst the biggest names Brunson battled were former champions, Anderson Silva, Israel Adesanya, and Robert Whittaker. Even in such match ups, he didn’t get the kind of compensation he’d expect or has heard about with some of the short-notice opportunities in the modern day.
“It’s crazy,” Brunson said. “It’s kind of disheartening when you hear guys like Kevin Holland say, ‘The fight with [Khamzat] Chimaev, I got paid crazy money.’ Like I would imagine he got $600,000 or something like that, short notice. Who else, I think Sean Strickland fought somebody on short notice, it was [Nassourdine] Imavov or somebody, but he fought him on short notice and got paid a lot of money. I’ve never been able to say that.
“I fought everybody,” he added. “Even like [Adesanya] — I didn’t have to fight ‘Izzy.’ I did it because it’s a big fight and I wanted to put on for the fans and put on a big fight. These are fights that I didn’t have to take but I took those risks and I really wanted to put on a good fight and give the fans something good.”