(“OK, Josh, now act like this Nandor fellow was somehow able to land a punch on you. We’ll use it for the gag reel.”)
The Oklahoma Athletic Commission recently released the payout figures for Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine, and wouldn’t you know it, Heavyweight Grand Prix runner-up Josh Barnett was able to walk away with nearly a quarter of the total disclosed $1,153,500 payroll for less than three minutes of work. Also of note, Tarec Saffiedine collected approximately $2.50 for each kick he was able to land on Nate Marquardt, yet still wound up a grand shy of, you guessed it, Frank Stallone Nate Marquardt when all was said and done. Speaking of Marquardt, dude somehow didn’t even get a precautionary suspension despite exiting the arena on crutches with a leg that looked like it had stared at the Ark of the Covenant. We were able to secure an exclusive interview with his doctor earlier today, who smugly stated that “Leg kicks certainly do not end lives” before throwing a smoke bomb and disappearing from the room. A strange man indeed.
Anyway, check out the full list of salaries along with our thoughts after the jump. Per usual, these figures are absent of any locker room bonuses, sponsorship bonuses, or invitations to Scott Coker’s BBQ bash this weekend that any of the fighters may have received.
Tarec Saffiedine: $39,000 ($19,500 win bonus)
def. Nate Marquardt: $40,000
Daniel Cormier: $120,000 ($60,000 win bonus)
def. Dion Staring: $8,000
Josh Barnett: $250,000 (no win bonus)
def. Nandor Guelmino: $12,000
Gegard Mousasi: $175,000 (no win bonus)
def. Mike Kyle: $25,000
Ronaldo Souza: $100,500 ($28,000 win bonus)
def. Ed Herman: $34,000
Ryan Couture: $22,000 ($7,000 win bonus)
def. KJ Noons: $41,000
Tim Kennedy: $80,000 ($25,000 win bonus)
def. Trevor Smith: $8,000
Pat Healy: $42,000 ($15,000 win bonus)
def. Kurt Holobaugh: $9,000
Roger Gracie: $94,000 ($47,000 win bonus)
def. Anthony Smith: $10,000
Adriano Martins: $16,000 ($8,000 win bonus)
def. Jorge Gurgel: $10,000
Estevan Payan: $12,000 ($6,000 win bonus)
def. Michael Bravo: $6,000
Before we get started, we’d like to commend Josh Barnett for battling through an illness that forced him to delay his fight week plans. The man is truly a fighter’s fighter and should be compensated as such. That said, damn. We’re not saying he’s overpaid, we’d just like to know why at a quarter million to show, Strikeforce would be happy throwing Barnett little more than a scary-looking training dummy for his final fight in the promotion. For that kind of money, you’d think they’d at least try and book a fight that didn’t resemble the beginning of a training montage. Seriously, swap Nandor with Sly Stallone and Barnett with Carl Weathers and that fight was basically the scene where Rocky gets dusted by Apollo Creed in a dead sprint on the beach. You know, before Adrian does her typical “What are you afraid of?! Death?! You should be, because HE’LL KILL YA ROCK!” thing and Rocky finds the inner courage to engage in homosexual water-splashing with Apollo or whatever.
Overpaid: According to Keith Kizer, the average MMA judge makes between $200 and $1,000 on a given night, depending on how big the show is, of course. I submit that the judges responsible for scoring the KJ Noons/Ryan Couture fight should not only be forced to turn over that money to the state, but should be ostracized from the MMA community entirely, possibly after a tar-and-feathering ceremony. When I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager, I only took home around $300 a week. I may not have been the perfect employee, but I could always tell the difference between a Filet-o-Fish and a hamburger. Clearly, two of those judges lacked this necessary discriminatory skill, and their ignorance should be eradicated before it infects the state of MMA judging any worse.
Underpaid: You think Strikeforce would have thrown Dion Starling a little more cash for accepting what was pretty much a death sentence on short notice. Looks like the poor bastard will have to continue cutting his own hair in the dark of his long since condemned apartment for the foreseeable future.