(“No matter what happens, I want you to know that I love you.” Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)
The official payouts for “Jackson vs. Griffin” are below, courtesy of MMA Weekly. Unless otherwise noted, each winning fighter’s salary represents a doubling of their base salary.
Forrest Griffin: $310,000 ($100,000 base salary, plus $150,000 win bonus, plus $60,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus)
Quinton Jackson: $285,000 ($225,000 base salary, plus $60,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus)
Gabriel Gonzaga: $100,000
Melvin Guillard: $80,000 (includes $60,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus)
Cole Miller: $80,000 (includes $60,000 “Submission of the Night” bonus)
Josh Koscheck: $70,000
Joe Stevenson: $60,000
Tyson Griffin: $40,000
Patrick Cote: $32,000
Ricardo Almeida: $23,000
Chris Lytle: $14,000
Gleison Tibau: $11,000
Jorge Gurgel: $10,000
Justin Buchholz: $8,000
Corey Hill: $8,000
Dennis Siver: $7,000
Justin McCully: $5,000
Total disclosed payroll: $943,000
Underpaid: Chris Lytle, who was paid a mere $1,000 for every pint of blood he lost against Josh Koscheck. The UFC likely rewarded his gruesome effort with one of those undisclosed “locker room bonuses,” but his base salary still seems a bit low for someone who’s been through so many high-profile wars for the company. Buchholz, McCully, and Siver’s base salaries are hardly worth the time they spent training for their fights — though one could argue that Siver and McCully should have trained a little harder.
Overpaid: Tyson Griffin. As long as you’re unable to finish a fight, you should be getting Jorge Gurgel money.
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The Fertitta Brothers, owners of UFC claim to be receiving offers of $1 Billion +, which they’ve turned down http://www.forbes.com/sportsbusiness/forbes/2008/0505/080.html. I believe all these fighters are underpaid for their efforts. The amount of training needed to get in this caliber of condition and skill is just as hard or harder than most sports where the competitors are paid multi-million dollar annual contracts. I hope for the good of the sport that big name sponsors will start backing these fighters to ensure more talent keeps coming into all MMA organizations. In regards to being paid for losing, there can only be one winner for each match. there is no reason that a fighter should not be compensated accordingly for his efforts.