(He may not have invited him to the BBQ afterward, but Anderson was going to make sure that Griffin squealed like a pig one way or another.)
The salaries for UFC 148′s twenty-two fighters were released earlier today, and it appears that Chael Sonnen earned exactly one dollar for every insult he aimed at the people of Brazil, which is 50% higher than the UFC’s current average compensatory rate for drawing the ire of an entire nation, a.k.a the Josh Koscheck clause, so a tip of the hat is in order for The Orgeonian in that regard. It will surely by him all of the medium rare steak sandwiches he could ever hope to have.
In other news, despite getting rocked on more than one occasion in his fight with the now retired Tito Ortiz and sprinting out of the cage like he was reliving his fight with Anderson Silva before the decision was even read, Forrest Griffin managed to walk away with the W and a cool $275,000 to boot. Actually, when you add in his $75,000 FOTN bonus, the total comes to…a much higher number. It would be impossible for us to crunch those kinds of numbers and still get this article together in just 8 hours, so take it for what it is and shut up.
Anderson Silva: $200,000 (no win bonus)
Chael Sonnen: $50,000
Forrest Griffin: $275,000 ($125,000 to show, $150,000 to win)
Tito Ortiz: $250,000
Cung Le: $150,000 (No win bonus)
Patrick Cote: $21,000
Demian Maia: $96,000 ($48,000 to show, $48,000 to win)
Dong Hyun Kim: $44,000
Mike Easton: $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Ivan Menjivar: $13,000
Chad Mendes: $36,000 ($18,000 to show, $18,000 to win)
Cody McKenzie: $10,000
Habib Nurmagomedov: $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Gleison Tibau: $31,000
Constantinos Philippou: $32,000 ($16,000 to show, $16,000 to win)
Riki Fukuda: $28,000
Melvin Guillard: $72,000 ($36,000 to show, $36,000 to win)
Fabricio Camoes: $8,000
Rafaello Oliveira: $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Yoislandy Izquierdo: $6,000
Shane Roller: $46,000 ($23,000 to show, $23,000 to win)
John Alessio: $10,000
Overpaid: Look, we know Cung Le is a big time movie star (He was the bomb in Phantoms Pandorum, yo.) and all, but is he really popular enough to earn a 150 thousand dollar paycheck? We’ll give him all the credit in the world for his performance against Patrick Cote, which was easily his finest since he permanently impacted five pounds of undigested raw meat into Scott Smith’s small intestine at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum, but to think that his base rate is almost as high as Silva’s is pretty unbelievable. Granted, Silva likely took home a significant cut of the astronomical PPV dollars, which likely boosted his salary toward the half mil mark considering those numbers. We imagine that was the case, though to a lesser extent, for Sonnen as well, because 50K doesn’t seem like much compensation for a man who has been tirelessly trolling the MMA world for a good two years now.
Also, Riki Fukuda apparently makes 28K to show. If we could tell you who that is, we would surely have more of an opinion on the matter.
*Checks Sherdog*
Ah, he’s the defending DEEP middleweight champion. Nope, still nothing.
Underpaid: Honestly, there isn’t really any figure that jumps to our immediate attention. We just hope DW threw Cody McKenzie a few extra dollars for essentially jumping on a grenade against Chad Mendes. And while we’re speaking of Mendes, considering that the man is a former title challenger, he isn’t exactly living up to his “Money” moniker. Let’s hope when his contract expires he can at least start making the money he rightfully deserves as the number 2 featherweight in the world.