MMA Fighting reports the salaries for UFC on Fox 4. Shogun Rua tops the list of UFC earners with a total of $240,000 according to information provided by the California State Athletic Commission.
Rua received a $170,000 base and a $70,000 win bonus. Lyoto Machida was second with a flat rate of $200,000 – no win bonus.
Via MMA Fighting:
Mauricio Rua: $240,000 ($170,000 to show, $70,000 to win)
Brandon Vera: $70,000
Lyoto Machida: $200,000 ($200,000 to show, no win bonus)
Ryan Bader: $47,000
Joe Lauzon: $48,000 ($24,000 to show, $24,000 to win)
Jamie Varner: $12,000
Mike Swick: $86,000 ($43,000 to show, $43,000 to win)
DeMarques Johnson: $18,000
Nam Phan: $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Cole Miller: $21,000
Wagner Prado: $16,000
Phil Davis: $30,000
(fight went to a no-decision; no win bonus awarded)
Rani Yahya: $24,000 ($12,000 to show, $12,000 to win)
Josh Grispi: $15,000
Phil De Fries: $32,000 ($16,000 to show, $16,000 to win)
Oli Thompson: $11,000
Manny Gamburyan: $36,000 ($18,000 to show, $18,000 to win)
Michihiro Omigawa: $11,000
John Moraga: $18,000 ($9,000 to show, $9,000 to win)
Ulysses Gomez: $8,000
Payout Perspective:
Interesting that Rua’s win bonus wasn’t the same as his show purse. Just looking down the payout list finds some interesting comparisons. Jamie Varner ($12,000) made less than Manny Gamburyan ($18,000), Phil De Fries ($16,000) and Wagner Prado ($16,000) among other fighters. But, he made more than Nam Phan’s base ($10,000). The good news for Phan is that he received a $2K bump from his last fight at UFC 141 when he made just $8,000.
Joe Lauzon earned $148,000 total including both of his bonuses. It made Lauzon the 3rd highest paid fighter on the card.
Not much different than the PPV salaries.
Do they still do fight of the night bonus and KO bonus?
Reported salaries are no different for PPV, Fox, FX, or Fuel. Otherwise no one would want to be on other cards than PPV.
Most interesting to me were Vera who must till be working on an old contract at $70k, and Prado starting off at 16k.
Davis should have to give Prado money since he intentionally poked him in the eye.
Vera used to make a lot more money ($100k base). To a certain extent, salaries are performance-based and Vera has disappointed/lost a lot of fights over the years.
I don’t believe the eye poke was intentional. This isn’t Koscheck we’re dealing with here. It’s funny how people throw a guy who has displayed zero indications that he’s a dirty fighter or a jerk in general under the bus. It looked bad, but in the heat of a fight you never know (unless we’re talking about Bisping’s crazy illegal knee/spitting).
Bonuses were $50,000 each: KO of the Night was Swick, Fight of the Night was Lauzon vs Varner, and SUB of the Night was also Lauzon.
Of course they’re no different than the disclosed salaries for PPV; the athletes have multi-fight contracts, which is common knowledge, and don’t change based on the platform (except for the champions/top draws that get a PPV%).