“Strikeforce: Evolution” Fighter Salaries: Le Tops Payroll With $150K; “King Mo” Fined
Former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le scored an event-high $150,000 for his main event loss to Scott Smith at Saturday’s “Strikeforce: Evolution” in San Jose, California, according to salaries released on Monday by the California State Athletic Commission.
Other top earners for “Evolution” included Smith, who earned $55,000 for his come-from-behind knockout of Le in the Showtime-televied headliner, as well as main card winners Gilbert Melendez ($55,000) and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza ($65,000).
Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal earned $20,000 for his victory over Mike Whitehead, but was fined 10% of his purse by the CSAC for dousing the cage with Rockstar Energy Drink following the win.
“Evolution” drew 14,749 fans to the HP Pavilion Center in San Jose for a live gate of nearly $634,000. The event’s fighter salaries totaled $480,200.
The officially-reported salaries for Strikeforce: Evolution were:
- Scott Smith ($55,000 – no win bonus) def. Cung Le ($150,000)
- Gilbert Melendez ($55,000 – no win bonus) def. Josh Thomson ($30,000)
- Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza ($65,000 – includes $10,000 win bonus) def. Matt Lindland ($50,000)
- Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal ($20,000 – $10,000 win bonus) def. Mike Whitehead ($30,000)
- Antwain Britt ($10,000 – $5,000 win bonus) def. Scott Lighty ($5,000)
- Justin Wilcox ($5,000) def. Daisuke Nakamura ($200)
- Alex Crispim ($4,000 – $2,000 win bonus) def. A.J. Fonseca ($2,000)
For the latest Strikeforce news and Strikeforce rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Cung Le
Tags: A.J. Fonseca, Alex Crispim, Antwain Britt, Bobby Stack, Cung Le, Daisuke Nakamura, David Douglas, gilbert melendez, Josh Thomson, Justin Wilcox, matt lindland, Mike Whitehead, Muhammed Lawal, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Scott Lighty, Scott Smith
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Strikeforce couldn’t have had a better night. With a rather small overall payout and a huge night of terrific fights, they have to be very pleased with the way the night turned out. That’s 2 awesome cards they’ve thrown in a row.
One thing though, I watched this fight at a Christmas party with music playing in the background. Much better not having to listen to Shamrock and Ranallo.
Listening to the Fran Drescher/Carrot Top sex tape would be better than listening to those two idiots.
At least it wasn’t Ken Shamrock and Lon McEacheran from Strikeforce on NBC…
;)
Mauro Ranallo is an idiot. He was wearing his “I <3 Cung Le" shirt for the headline fight, and you could practically hear him sobbing as McCarthy tugged Smith off him.
And look at all those 2k paydays. Where's the crying about the low pay now?
Daisuke Nakamura ($200)
lol
Now that’s a gate to salary ratio I can work with. Inevitably Strikeforce will have to start charging more to catch them live in person, but with these great cards they’ve been putting on, I don’t see them having much trouble filling respectable arenas.
I’m surprised King Mo made so little considering the hype that’s been behind him. Also, who’s gonna pick up his tab? The guy gave Rockstar one of their best promos and gets finned for it (by the AC, not Strikeforce, which would have been just wrong).
I’m reasonably sure that whatever RockStar is paying Lawal will offset his $2000 fine.
As for his reported payout, I think its about right. Strikeforce is essentially a regional promotion with an appropriately regional payscale, and its not like the “King Mo” brand, Rockstar nonsense notwithstanding, has that Liddell-Couture type of recognition and market traction…
That was just nasty when he took the pink rockstar bath. Can’t believe he got fined 10% of his earnings though, stuff can’t be any worse to clean up than blood….
Blood on the mat is part of fighting. Dumping an energy drink on yourself is a willful action. The amount of work to clean it up likely isn’t the reason for the fine – the action that prompte the clean up much more likely is.
I think Strikeforce lost it’s “regional promotion” label when they signed Fedor and Hendo and got that big network deal.
King Mo is not sponsored by Rockstar, Rockstar is Strikeforce’s sponsor, Mo said he would have rather done it with Pepsi.
I would like to see fewer 2k fighters from all promotions. When Strikeforce (on premium cable) has as many as a WEC event (on basic cable), it means they aren’t paying their fighters enough.
For everyone who loudly proclaims that the UFC doesn’t pay their fighters enough (and I don’t mean this to call eldiablo out in particular), their pay is significantly higher…even on UFC Fight Night events or TUF Finales on basic cable. The lowest from the last disclosed PPV (106) was 6k (Volkmann). Other than that, there was only one other under 10k (Jason Dent at 8k).
And before the issue of PPV vs Showtime comes up, on the consumer end, it isn’t much different. If you order a PPV at home alone, it runs $45 in my area. Even having one friend chip in drops your to just over $20. Going to a sports bar makes the cost…variable depending on how much you eat and drink (~$30 for me). In order to get Showtime, I will need to lease a cable box from my cable provider ($12.95 per month) and upgrade to a package that supplies Showtime ($15 per month).
Anyone who truly cares about fighter pay should be up in arms over this. Why aren’t they?
dbiz, I’m just talking about gate to salray ratio, IMO it should be the base of fighters’ salaries. I think the last time I was adament about salaries was the Jardine $14K for beating Liddell on a UFC ppv. And maybe I was surprised Mir only got $40K for his UFC 100 showing. Not really sure why you put my name up there, but oh well. In all honesty, I can’t remember the last time I posted here about low UFC salaries.
I think the reason people are speaking less about salaries is because people are educating themselves as to the true payday of fighters (salaries, ads, etc).
Are you serious??
You compare UFC salaries.. in which 1-5 million people pay FIFTY bucks to watch (and sometimes fighters are payed under 10k) to the payroll of this event?
The logic isn’t sound I’m sorry but this is a free event which grosses far less then the astronomical amounts of money the UFC pulls in in each event.
Of course their pay is signifigantly higher, even still with the amount of money the UFC pulls in they should pay their lower end fighters a lot more then they do. Showtime is a channel with many other shows on it.. it is interesting that you think the 15$ you pay for a package including more then a single channel goes straight into the pocket of strikeforce. They probably get less then a dollar per subscription on a month they put on a show (which would still be signifigant considering you don’t have to watch just have a subscription, of which there are many)
Showtime has no commercials so they make no money there. Sponsors, live gate, and some money from showtime is all these guys make.
50$x3mill buys = 150mil. A MONTH. Not including sponsors. Not including live-gate. Maybe when Strikeforce has been around for…………….. 15 years…………….. and still has the same payout while grossing many many times the money they do now……. maybe then you can cry (I am not saying the UFC has not raised its payouts).
Maybe.. but probably not. Dbiz we are all aware you are a UFC+Dana white Fanboy.. but sometimes I wonder about you brother.. (not meant as an insult, I too have fanboyish tendencies for many things :D)
Not to re-broadcast all of that old fighter salary noise, but did Daisuke Nakamura ACTUALLY get paid only $200, or is that a typo?
I ask because $200 is like high school gym/riverboat/truckstop/Indian casino-level money, and I would think that Strikeforce would almost be embarrassed to report paying a fighter so little…
Again, similar to when Strikeforce paid Mousasi 2,000 dollars to fight Babalu (75k), Nakamura’s primary contract is with FEG, now in the state of California the AC requires you to claim a fighters salary in which the fighter is taxed on, Strikeforce paid Nakamura 200 dollars, and well lets assume that FEG will pay the rest ;-) it is known that quite a few orgs have done this, soo believe me Nakamura got paid well for his travels to San Jose, and put on a pretty damn good fight too, just lost via decision but most were impressed by the little guy from Japan..
Good stuff, boss.
I forgot all about that “on loan” stuff that Strikeforce has going on with its allied promotions…
Good info. I read something simliar and it makes a lot more sense than paying him $200 lol. Hope to see him brought back stateside, good fighter.
i thought mo would get a better pay day then that, hes prob strikeforce biggest up and comer, i think dana should get him signed!! im glad cung le got caught hes wasteing every1′s time by doin movies then fighting movies fighting, if he put his mind to it he could be the to top out there but hes not guna do that so f*ck him!
top dog out there my bad.
Am reading that right 200$.WTF
Please see the above comments on this same issue.
Yea,i did just scim through them.Just kind of went off on reaction