Making a living off of proffessional fighting.

[Oreomeister365]

My question is simply, if a fighter were to make it to the UFC/K1/Pride, and worked his way up, would he be able to make a professional living off of it, assuming he was a good fighter and so on? popular etc. I mean, at the upper levels of Liddel or Wanderlei, or fedor, whats the pay, and then what about a lower Diego Sanchez level? I see cropcop, I don't know how long he's been fighting, but his house is large, he looks like he lives nicely. And other fighters seems fairly well off. I don't intend on making fighting the be all end all career of my life, but one more option because I enjoy MMA so much.

"Note that the salary earned by Stephan Bonnar, Forrest Griffin, or Diego Sanchez for any particular UFC fight is in addition to the "prize" that each of them earned by winning the reality show, with that prize being a three-year contract for approximately $117,000 per year (for a total of $350,000)."

that was a small example, but then I saw that liddell at UFC 52 got 150,000 some bucks for winning the fight...

[OmaPlata]

Whats a living? If u want to live in an apartment and pay 800 bucks a month, sure, you can do it. If u want a 2 million dollar house like me, well, or a 5 million dollar house like chuck (?) then you better rise to the top else the answers no. Its like bodybuilding, maybe 12 guys can earn enough to have a career off it, unless you have a Gym, a style you can teach, etc, you must supplament other ways...sell dope to the Twister or something

[SamuraiGuy]

Chuck and Randy made about a million each with the added bonus of a percentage of PPV buys, for Couture/Lidell 3.

Fedor, makes about 750 000 - 1 million per fight.

Silva makes probably the same or more.

Apparently Cro Cop wasnt happy with the amount of money for fighitng in and winning the OWGP, he's now getting paid more.

Some Japanese fighters paid by pride have got 2 million +.


On the other hand, (mainly because he signed a contract when he was relatively un known) Rich Franklin makes about 36 000 to fight, 36 000 to win.

Thats pennies compared to others. GSP makes, like 60 000/ 60 000 I believe.

Anyway, at least with the UFC, after every PPV the amount of money each fighter gets paid, has to be posted, as a rule of the athletic comission.

First time fighters/undercard fighters, usually get like 2000 to fight, 2000 to win. Maybe 4000 to fight 4000 to win, etc.. just depends on who you are, its a really varying scale though.

[7r14ngL3Ch0k3]

Tito got over 300,000 to fight Shamrock

[J-Luck]

There is a major difference between the UFC and other major MMA organizations... The UFC pays less(though pay will increase with popularity) but has a huge door open for enorsments and such with the popularity increasing(the US is a fantastic market for any company). Pride pays more, but less guys from Pride get GOOD endorsement deals.