Conor McGregor is one of, if not the biggest stars in the history of the sport of MMA. This much is indisputable. However, what might actually be disputable is the actual amount of money he has made during his tenure with the UFC so far.
Has Conor McGregor made less than was previously thought?
McGregor has faced the who’s who of combat sports during his career – Jose Aldo, Eddie Alvarez, Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Dustin Poirier (thrice), and the list goes on. With this in mind, and also with his various displays of wealth over the years, one would reasonably estimate “The Notorious” to have made A LOT of money from his Octagon run. After all, he does feature in 8 of the UFC’s top 10 highest selling PPVs of all time. However, some are claiming that Conor has not actually made as much as people think.
MMA journalist John Nash is a specialist on the subject area of fighter pay, and he made some very interesting points whilst speaking to Luke Thomas on his podcast.
“Conor McGregor is probably the highest-paid fighter, there was actually information floating around on his contract before the Mayweather fight and I don’t think it has changed that much. I have a feeling he is not making as much as some people think, I don’t think it’s $25-30 million. My guess would be that he is making somewhere between $15-18 million in that ball park.”
Nash elaborated further on this, using the example of probably the biggest pro-wrestling/UFC crossover, current WWE superstar Brock Lesnar to compare with Conor McGregor.
“The one I know I can legally disclose for a fact is that of Brock Lesnar, first in the lawsuit it says $8 million was the highest pay cheque in the UFC ever which I confirmed was Brock Lesnar. He made $2.5 million from UFC 100 reported and a side-letter for $5.5 million. He was also the highest-paid fighter ever until sometime in 2017.”
What makes this even more interesting is that following the trilogy loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 last year, McGregor had made somewhere in the region of $20-30 million after pay-per-view revenue, which reached the heights of 1.6 million buys.
Regardless of whether it’s higher or lower, no one can argue that McGregor has made a fortune during his UFC run – the Octagon has been the source of life-changing, generational wealth for the ‘Notorious’ one.