(It’s cool, he’s used to it. / Photo via MMAFighting.com)
The UFC paid out $1,733,000 in disclosed salaries and performance bonuses to the 24 fighters who competed at UFC 160, with heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez‘s $400,000 flat fee eating up 23% of the total. (Coming soon: The “Occupy Velasquez” movement, led by Jacob Volkmann and John Cholish.) Heavyweights Junior Dos Santos and Mark Hunt made over $200k for their co-main event bout — including their $50,000 Fight of the Night bonuses — while the night’s other big winner, TJ Grant, just made it to the six-figure mark.
Check out the full list of UFC 160 salaries below — courtesy of the Nevada State Athletic Commission via MMAMania — followed by our traditional rundown of who’s underpaid/overpaid. Keep in mind that the numbers don’t include additional income from undisclosed “locker-room bonuses,” sponsorships, or cuts of the pay-per-view that some of the UFC’s stars are entitled to, or deductions for taxes, insurance, and licensing fees.
Cain Velasquez: $400,000 (no win bonus)
Antonio Silva: $75,000
Junior dos Santos: $290,000 (includes $120,000 win bonus, $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
Mark Hunt: $210,000 (includes $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
Glover Teixeira: $98,000 (includes $24,000 win bonus, $50,000 Submission of the Night bonus)
James Te Huna: $30,000
T.J. Grant: $100,000 (includes $25,000 win bonus, $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus)
Gray Maynard: $45,000
Donald Cerrone: $82,000 (includes $41,000 win bonus)
K.J. Noons: $41,000
Mike Pyle: $84,000 (includes $42,000 win bonus)
Rick Story: $27,000
Dennis Bermudez: $28,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus)
Max Holloway: $14,000
Robert Whittaker: $30,000 (includes $15,000 win bonus)
Colton Smith: $15,000
Khabib Nurmagomedov: $28,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus)
Abel Trujillo: $8,000
Stephen Thompson: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
Nah-Shon Burrell: $9,000
George Roop: $26,000 (includes $13,000 win bonus)
Brian Bowles: $19,000
Jeremy Stephens: $48,000 (includes $24,000 win bonus)
Estevan Payan: $10,000
Underpaid: None of the heavyweights, that’s for sure. This is one of those UFC payout lists that kind of suggests a correlation between size and paycheck. A lightweight phenom like Khabib Nurmagomedov gets just $14,000 to show, while a light-heavyweight phenom like Glover Teixeira gets $24,000. And then you have Bigfoot Silva earning $75,000 just for lumbering into a heavyweight title fight, I guess. Rick Story‘s $27k seems rather low, considering how long he’s been paying his dues in the Octagon. And yet, it’s way more than any bantamweight on the card could hope to get.
Overpaid: KJ Noons is a non-entity in the UFC, and it’s unlikely that he’ll have a long, successful career in the promotion. But somehow, his $41,000 show-money was identical to that of opponent Donald Cerrone, a high-profile veteran who’s about as dependably exciting as anyone in this sport. Noons made almost as much cash as top-shelf lightweight Gray Maynard, and makes far more to-show than guys like Teixeira and Nurmagomedov, who actually will have futures in the promotion.