The California commission has released pay figures for UFC on ESPN: Vera vs. Cruz and there’s some interesting numbers in there.
Back in the day, almost every athletic commission used to disclose the official contracted salaries of combat sports athletes. It was one of the small protections that existed to try and stop promoters from screwing over fighters. As it goes in today’s dog eat dog world, even that protection has been whittled down to the point where California is one of the few states left sharing UFC pay. With UFC San Diego in the books, let’s see what the fighters on the card made!
In a somewhat shocking situation, Angela Hill (who is 2-5 over her last seven) made $190,000 for her decision win over Lupita Godinez on the prelims of UFC on ESPN: Vera vs. Cruz. Dominick Cruz — who, as the event name indicates, was the event’s headliner — made $175,000 to get his biz kicked in and nose broken against Marlon Vera.
Vera’s doing pretty well: “Chito” pocketed $300,000 for beating Cruz in a fight that undoubtedly puts him right on the edge of a bantamweight title shot. Two other fighters were a part of the six figure pay club: Gabriel Benitez made $100,000 for his first round knockout of Charlie Ontiveros, and Gerald Meerschaert made $146,000 for his third round submission win over Bruno Silva.
On the other side of the payscale, you have Josh Quinlan and Lukasz Brzeski fighting on $10,000 to show and $10,000 to win contracts. There were a whole lot of $12,000 show and $12,000 win fighters including Youssef Zalal, D’amon Blackshear, Charlie Ontiveros, Martin Buday, Azamat Murzakanov, and Iasmin Lucindo.
That’s on account of them being relatively new fighters in the league. As you can see from Angela Hill and Gerald Meerschaert’s paychecks, stick around long enough and the money doesn’t look too bad.
Here’s the full pay figures as per the California State Athletic Commission:
- Marlon Vera $300,000 ($150,000 Show/$150,000 Win) defeats Dominick Cruz $175,000
- Nate Landwehr $60,000 ($30,000 Show/$30,000 Win) defeats David Onama $24,000
- Yazmin Jauregui $50,000 ($25,000 Show/$25,000 Win) defeats Iasmin Lucindo $12,000
- Azamat Murzakanov $24,000 ($12,000 Show/$12,000 Win) defeats Devin Clark $75,000
- Priscila Cachoeira $80,000 ($40,000 Show/$40,000 Win) defeats Ariane Lipski $40,000
- Gerald Meerschaert $146,000 ($73,000 Show/$73,000 Win) defeats Bruno Silva $40,000
- Angela Hill $190,000 ($95,000 Show/$95,000 Win) defeats Lupita Godinez $45,000
- Martin Buday $24,000 ($12,000 Show/$12,000 Win) defeats Lukasz Brzeski $10,000
- Nina Nunes $80,000 ($40,000 Show/$40,000 Win) defeats Cynthia Calvillo $70,000
- Gabriel Benitez $100,000 ($50,000 Show/$50,000 Win) defeats Charlie Ontiveros $12,000
- Tyson Nam $50,000 ($25,000 Show/$25,000 Win) defeats Ode Osbourne $28,000
- Josh Quinlan $20,000 ($10,000 Show/$10,000 Win) defeats Jason Witt $23,000
- Youssef Zalal $24,000 ($12,000 Show/$12,000 Win) defeats D’amon Blackshear $12,000
For complete UFC San Diego: “Cruz vs. Vera” results and play-by-play, click HERE.