Ronda Rousey received a $3 million purse guarantee for her hyped return to the Octagon in the main event of UFC 207 on Friday night. Her opponent, current women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, got a $100,000 purse with a matching win bonus.
Brett Okamoto of ESPN.com provided the official figures from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. ESPN’s Darren Rovell reported the initial payout for Rousey matches Conor McGregor’s total from UFC 202 for the highest guaranteed fight purse in UFC history.
The formerly dominant champion will enter the cage for the first time since November 2015 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Friday. Her last fight was a shocking second-round knockout loss to Holly Holm, which marked her first MMA defeat in 13 outings.
Rousey managed to build a brand beyond fighting as part of her rise to mainstream stardom over the past handful of years. She’s branched out into acting, including a stint as host of Saturday Night Live, and wrote an autobiography.
The 29-year-old California native still identifies most closely with mixed martial arts, though. She told Ellen DeGeneres (via Michael Blaustein of the New York Post) following the unexpected loss to Holm that there was a brief moment where she considered suicide.
“I was down in the corner [of the medical room], and I was like, ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’ I was literally sitting there and thinking about killing myself,” Rousey said. “In that exact second I’m like, ‘I’m nothing.'”
More recently, Martin Rogers of USA Today noted she tried to squash any concerns about her outside interests interfering with her UFC career leading up to the fight.
“I don’t care about anything except winning this fight,” Rousey said. “I am not spending energy on anything else.”
That said, her future beyond UFC 207 remains in the air, and a second straight loss Friday night would lead to endless speculation about whether her MMA days may have reached a conclusion.
On the opposite side, if Nunes needed any added motivation in the hours leading up to her title defense, the confirmation of the purses should provide it. While there’s no doubt Rousey is the bigger draw, earning 30 times less at the outset is likely a tough pill to swallow for the current champion.
Holm pulled off the upset with an aggressive approach that allowed her to deliver the type of early punishment no other Rousey opponent could muster. It will be intriguing to see whether Nunes utilizes the same style when the opening bell rings for the main event.
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