Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returned to the hurt business last Saturday night (Feb. 10, 2018) for UFC 221, which took place inside Perth Arena in Perth, Australia, and now it’s time to see who walked away with the biggest piece of the Reebok sponsorship pie.
Luke Rockhold — who was knocked out by Yoel Romero in the third round of their interim Middleweight title fight (see it) — was the biggest sponsorship earner, winning $30,000 from the sports apparel giant. As for Romero, who failed to make weight, he was ineligible to get paid the championship tier money, and only took home $10,000, aside from having to give Rockhold a percentage of his purse.
On the bright side, his championship fight against Robert Whittaker was confirmed by UFC president Dana White.
Let’s take a look at the rest of the Reebok payouts — which recently witnessed an overhaul in pay structure — courtesy of MMA Junkie:
Yoel Romero: $10,000 def. Luke Rockhold: $30,000
Curtis Blaydes: $5,000 def. Mark Hunt: $15,000
Tai Tuivasa: $3,500 def. Cyril Asker: $5,000
Jake Matthews: $5,000 def. Li Jingliang: $5,000
Tyson Pedro: $5,000 def. Saparbek Safarov: $3,500
Dong Hyun Kim: $5,000 def. Damien Brown: $5,000
Israel Adesanya: $3,500 def. Rob Wilkinson: $3,500
Alex Volkanovski: $5,000 def. Jeremy Kennedy: $5,000
Jussier Formiga: $10,000 def. Ben Nguyen: $5,000
Ross Pearson: $20,000 def. Mizuto Hirota: $5,000
Jose Quinonez: $5,000 def. Teruto Ishihara: $5,000
Luke Jumeau: $3,500 def. Daichi Abe: $3,500
TOTAL $171,000
According to the payout structure (see it), the more fights you have combined with UFC and the now-defunct World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) and Strikeforce promotions, the more coin you have for your combat sports piggy bank.
And the less fights you have under the ZUFFA banner… well, the less you get. If you have a problem with the structure, take it up with UFC, not Reebok.
According to the report, fighters will also receive royalty and payments up to 20-30 percent of any UFC-related merchandise sold that bears his or her likeness. That’s a great way for the Internet “morons” to help the cause.